They laid hold of Toby, still kneeling and pleading, bound his arms behind him with the cord, and then looked calmly at Lysander for instructions.
"Take him to the shed," said the captain. "One of you carry this light. You can string him up to a crossbeam. If you don't understand how that's done, I'll go and show you. He's to have twenty lashes to begin with, for lying to me. Then he's to be whipped till he tells where our escaped prisoners are hid in the mountains. You understand?"
"Ve unterstan," said the brothers, coldly.
Toby groaned. They took hold of him, and dragged him away.
"Now will you behave, my girl? A pretty row you're making! Ye see it's no use. I am master. The nigger'll only get it the worse for your interference."
Lysander looked insolently in his wife's face. It was livid.
"Hey?" he said. "One of your tantrums?"
He placed her on a chair. She was rigid; she did not speak; he would have thought she was in a fit but for the eyes which she never took off of him—eyes fixed with deep, unutterable, deadly, despairing hate.
"I reckon you'll behave—you'd better!" he said, shaking his finger warningly at her as he retired backwards from the room.
She saw the door close behind him. She did not move: her eyes were still fixed on that door: heavy and cold as stone, she sat there, and gazed, with that same look of unutterable hate. Perhaps five minutes. Then she heard blows and shrieks. Toby's shrieks: he had no Carl now to rush in and cut his bands.