and that was a virtue in his eyes; not seeing what direct injury could come to Byng through it.  He had not seen, he had not understood, he was still uncivilized; he had only in his veins the morality of the native, and he had tried to ruin his master’s wife for his master’s sake; and when he had finished with Fellowes as a traitor, he was ready to ruin his confederate—­to kill him—­perhaps did kill him!

“It’s the only way to deal with you, Hottentot dog!”

The look in Krool’s eyes only increased Byng’s lust of punishment.  What else was there to do?  Without terrible scandal there was no other way to punish the traitor, but if there had been another way he would still have done this.  This Krool understood; behind every command the Baas had ever given him this thing lay—­the sjambok, the natural engine of authority.

Suddenly Byng said with a voice of almost guttural anger:  “You dropped that letter on my bedroom floor—­that letter, you understand? . . .  Speak.”

“I did it, Baas.”

Byng was transformed.  Slowly he laid down the sjambok, and as slowly took off his coat, his eyes meanwhile fastening those of the wretched man before him.  Then he took up the sjambok again.

“You know what I am going to do with you?”

“Yes, Baas.”

It never occurred to Byng that Krool would resist; it did not occur to Krool that he could resist.  Byng was the Baas, who at that moment was the Power immeasurable.  There was only one thing to do—­to obey.

“You were told to leave my house by Mrs. Byng, and you did not go.”

“She was not my Baas.”

“You would have done her harm, if you could?”

“So, Baas.”

With a low cry Byng ran forward, the sjambok swung through the air, and the terrible whip descended on the crouching half-caste.

Krool gave one cry and fell back a little, but he made no attempt to resist.

Suddenly Byng went to a window and threw it open.

“You can jump from there or take the sjambok.  Which?” he said with a passion not that of a man wholly sane.  “Which?”

Krool’s wild, sullen, trembling look sought the window, but he had no heart for that enterprise—­thirty feet to the pavement below.

“The sjambok, Baas,” he said.

Once again Byng moved forward on him, and once again Krool’s cry rang out, but not so loud.  It was like that of an animal in torture.

In the next room, Wallstein and Stafford and the others heard it, and understood.  Whispering together they listened, and Stafford shrank away to the far side of the room; but more than one face showed pleasure in the sound of the whip and the moaning.

It went on and on.

Barry Whalen, however, was possessed of a kind of fear, and presently his face became troubled.  This punishment was terrible.  Byng might kill the man, and all would be as bad as could be.  Stafford came to him.