Argosy, Vol. 117, No. 2 — page 56: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

206 En-ro still carried in his girdle the flint and the hammer-stone. % CHAPTER IV. THE RED GOD. BITES. OR three days En-ro, bound to a tree and guarded by four negroes, was beaten. Twenty-five strokes each day were laid on, from a lash of rhinoceros hide in the hands of a stalwart warrior—twenty- five and no more, for Meng did not wish him to die quickly, as would have happened had the beatings been too heavy. And in agony Va-m’rai watched, bound to another tree ten paces distant. She tried to turn her head away, but it was forced around and held; she tried to close her eyes, but what she imagined was worse than the sight. And when each beating was over En-ro’s back was rubbed with salt and with sap from a pine, that the bleeding might be stopped and the victim ready for the fol- lowing day. | But never a sound did the white warrior make; never a sign did he give of the pain he endured. In silence and unflinching he bore the torture, and when the twenty-five lashes were laid on he turned to Va-m’rai and smiled, giving no glance toward Meng or any other. This utter contempt stirred up in the Bison a rage beside which his former anger was trifling. On the morning of the fourth day Meng and his warriors went to hunt, though in- deed the Bison’s own wounds were not yet fully healed, and he lacked much of his ordinary vigor. But before leaving the camp he went to taunt En-ro and to enjoy ~ the sight of the white man’s back, raw and swollen from the lashings. Every bitter word, every foul taunt, every insult the Bison could command was hurled at the Carver of Tusks, but the artist of the Ta-an did not even turn his head; steadily and in silence he gazed past the negro as though he were not there, and more than once Meng’s lance was raised to kill, but lowered again as the giant thought of the days to come. At length he departed, leaving the four negroes on guard, saying to them: THE ARGOSY. “ Keep this man with your lives; wily and strong is he, a great warrior, as you should know, and will trick you if chance offers, or overcome you by his great strength. Go not too nigh him.” “Yes, Master,” answered the negroes, bowing, and one spoke, timorously: ““ But, Master, should he by strength or wile win loose, what then?” Meng glared at him fiercely, his lips curl- ing back from his teeth in an evil grin as he replied: fe ‘Then wait not my return, but run on your spears, for if he be gone and you alive, be sure that, bound hand and foot, you will lie on the home of the Little Red Ants, whose teeth are like poisoned needles!” The negroes shuddered; to be eaten alive by swarming millions of ants! So Meng and his followers left for a day’s hunting, and En-ro sat on the ground be- neath his tree, the four men watching him. All day long he, sat there, shifting from time to time, and eating from the lump of flesh thrown down beside him, or drinking from the gourd of water that one of the guards carried from a nearby stream; Meng wished him to be strong to bear the torture, and En-ro also wished to keep his strength —though for another reason! » Va-m’rai he could not see; she was taken away to some hiding-place after each day’s beating was done. And so the weary day dragged on, the sun climbing over the tree-tops and sinking again in the western sky, while the patches of light on the ground, sifting through the trees, grew shorter and rounder, then length- ened out again as the sun declined, growing more and more yellow toward evening. The guards chatted among themselves, and once. or twice spoke to En-ro, asking some ques- tion or other, of which he took no notice. At times they jeered at him, made fun of him, taunted him, for they were proud to be guarding a white man, a warrior of the Ta-an; they promised him a harder. beat- ing on the morrow, they jested and boasted that the white man would cry for mercy, they mimicked the writhings and _ the screams that would be his, and once or - twice flung clods of earth at him, but he gave no sign that he had seen or heard. CORMICLOOOKS (F@)