'I cannot.'
'Show it me.'
'It is in my back, between my shoulders,' said Shaw.
Jim Dennis laughed savagely.
'In your back. A fitting place for it. Things such as you never face an enemy, they are always wounded in the back.'
He pushed him over and saw there was blood on the bed.
'So you have not lied this time,' said Jim. 'I have come to have a settling day with you. It is a long-standing account and a heavy one. You are the scoundrel who stole my wife and robbed my child of its mother. You are the man, and you have taken my hand in friendship since.'
He raised his whip and was about to bring it down across Rodney Shaw's body. He hesitated. He would not strike a wounded man with his whip.
'I meant to thrash you, but you cannot stand up and take it. That part of your punishment I will count out, but you must pay the rest in full.'
'What do you mean to do?' asked Shaw.