As to me, I suffered inwardly, but I did not dare to interfere.
Don Zeno Cabral reckoned without emotion the strokes as they fell, one by one.
At the eleventh the blood started out.
The gaucho did not stop.
The Indian, although his flesh quivered under the blows which came more and more rapidly, preserved his stony impassibility.
The fifty blows to which the guide had been condemned by the implacable don Zeno were administered by the gaucho without one being missed. At the thirty-second, notwithstanding all his courage, the Indian had lost consciousness, but that, notwithstanding my entreaty, did not interrupt the chastisement.
"Stop," at last, said don Zeno, when the number was complete, "unbind him."
The ties were cut and the body of the poor fellow fell helplessly on the sand.
The son of the gaucho then approached, rubbed with beef fat, water, and vinegar the bleeding wounds of the Indian—threw his poncho over his shoulders and then left him.
"But that man has fainted," I cried.