“I have always been glad I had Pedro wait outside the door of the government house.
“His brother was bound upon the whipping bench, his body bare to the waist. A row of stripes which ran diagonally across his bare back from hip to shoulder showed where each blow of the rattan had cut through skin and flesh so that the blood flowed back to mark its course.
”‘Stop!’ I cried, rushing forward to where the Governor was standing. ‘Stop! I will pay this man’s tax. How much is it? Let him up! I’ll pay for him.’
“The Governor looked at me a moment, and, excited as I was, I noticed that his face was set in an angry scowl.
”‘You can’t pay for him, now,’ he said. ‘No one can pay for him now.’
”‘I’ll teach them,’ he added, a moment later, ‘See that!’ holding up his left arm, about the wrist of which I saw a handkerchief was bound, fresh stained with blood.
”‘Go on!’ he cried, to the man with the rod.
“At first I could not find out what had happened. Then a soldier told me.
“The man had been brought in like a snared animal, held by the jungle ropes, each thorn of which was agony. When he had cried out that he was unjustly tortured, the Governor himself had dragged the clinging hooks from out his flesh, and had called him a name which to the Visayan means deathly insult if it be not resented.
“At which Pedro’s brother, snatching a knife which was hidden inside his clothing, struck at the Governor and wounded him in the arm, before he could be caught by the soldiers, disarmed, and bound down on the bench.