The first cut ran from the shoulder across the middle of the back; the second fell exactly in the same place. A shudder passed through the boy’s frame.
“Nice, eh?” said Bonaparte, peeping round into his face, speaking with a lisp, as though to a very little child. “Nith, eh?”
But the eyes were black and lustreless, and seemed not to see him. When he had given sixteen Bonaparte paused in his work to wipe a little drop of blood from his whip.
“Cold, eh? What makes you shiver so? Perhaps you would like to pull up your shirt? But I’ve not quite done yet.”
When he had finished he wiped the whip again, and put it back in his pocket. He cut the rope through with his penknife, and then took up the light.
“You don’t seem to have found your tongue yet. Forgotten how to cry?” said Bonaparte, patting him on the cheek.
The boy looked up at him—not sullenly, not angrily. There was a wild, fitful terror in the eyes. Bonaparte made haste to go out and shut the door, and leave him alone in the darkness. He himself was afraid of that look.
It was almost morning. Waldo lay with his face upon the ground at the foot of the fuel-heap. There was a round hole near the top of the door, where a knot of wood had fallen out, and a stream of grey light came in through it.
Ah, it was going to end at last. Nothing lasts forever, not even the night. How was it he had never thought of that before? For in all that long dark night he had been very strong, had never been tired, never felt pain, had run on and on, up and down, up and down; he had not dared to stand still, and he had not known it would end. He had been so strong, that when he struck his head with all his force upon the stone wall it did not stun him nor pain him—only made him laugh. That was a dreadful night.