and you made
me take second place. I have hated you ever since; I hate you now--so
much it is almost love, Roy! Eh, but I never love. I hate. And when
I hate--I hurt!"

To all this tirade Newman returned no answer. He did not seem to hear.
He hung silent in his bonds, his head on his breast and his face
hidden. He might have been unconscious. I thought he was, for he did
not even look up when the captain was excitedly chanting his hate.
Swope was plainly piqued at this indifference; he got up from his keg
and stepped close to Newman.

"But you are not thinking of yourself, are you, Roy?" he says. "You
are thinking of her, I know. How sweet! Sentiment was always your
strong point. Well, think hard about her, Roy, think your fill; for
she is almost as near her end as you are near yours. But not quite so
near. I intend to break that haughty spirit before I--er--eliminate
her. Oh, yes, it will break. Trust me to know the sure way. Roy,
don't you want to know what I am going to do to Mary?"

He paused a moment, and, chuckling and smacking his lips, stood looking
at Newman's bowed figure. Then he said slowly and deliberately,
actually lingering over the words. "I am going to make a strumpet of
the wench for Fitzgibbon's pleasure!"

Newman stirred. "Ah, that wakes you up!" cried Swope. It did, indeed.
Newman was not unconscious. I could have wished he was, so he might
not have heard those words. He lifted his face to the light, and I
could see the sweat of agony upon it. He did not speak. He just
looked at the man in front of him. It was a look of unutterable
loathing; his expression was as though he were regarding something
indescribably obscene and revolting. And then he pursed his lips and
spat in Captain Swope's face.

The skipper stepped back, and swabbed his cheek with his sleeve. I
thought he would strike Newman, kick him, practice some devilish
cruelty upon him in payment. Aye, I was crouched for the spring, with
my sheath knife ready; if he had laid finger upon Newman I should have
had his life in an instant. I was all the barbarian that moment, my
new-found scruples forgotten. I was in a killing mood. What man would
not have been.

But Captain Swope did not attempt to repay the insult with any physical
cruelty. He knew he was already racking his enemy's body to the limit
of endurance, and his aim, I discovered, was to supplement this bodily
suffering with mental torture. Inde