who betrayed me for your sake, and you--you
dirty beggar--are worthy of each other. I could crush you like a fly
that can be destroyed by a blow of my hand if I chose, but my sword
is Caesar's, and shall never be soiled by such foul blood as yours;
however, the beast shall not have cast off his skin for nothing, it is
thick, and so you have only spared me the trouble of tearing it off you
before giving you your due. You shall find no lack of blows. Confess
where your sweetheart has fled to and they shall be few, but if you are
slow to answer they will be many. Lend me that thing there, fellow!"

With these words he took a whip of hippopotamus hide out of a
camel-driver's band, went close up to the Alexandrian, and asked: "Where
is Sirona?"

"Nay, you may beat me," said Paulus. "However hard your whip may fall on
me, it cannot be heavy enough for my sins; but as to where your wife is
hiding, that I really cannot tell you--not even if you were to tear my
limbs with pincers instead of stroking me with that wretched thing."

There was something so genuinely honest in Paulus' voice and tone, that
the centurion was inclined to believe him; but it was not his way to
let a threatened punishment fail of execution, and this strange beggar
should learn by experience that when his hand intended to hit hard, it
was far from "stroking." And Paulus did experience it, without uttering
a cry, and without stirring from the spot where he stood.

When at last Phoebicius dropped his weary arm and breathlessly repeated
his question, the ill-used man replied, "I told you before I do not
know, and therefore I cannot reveal it."

Up to this moment Petrus, though he had felt strongly impelled to rush
to the rescue of his severely handled fellow-believer, had nevertheless
allowed the injured husband to have his way, for he seemed disposed
to act with unusual mildness, and the Alexandrian to be worthy of all
punishment; but at this point Dorothea's request would not have been
needed to prompt him to interfere.

He went up to the centurion, and said to him in an undertone, "You have
given the evil-doer his due, and if you desire that he should undergo
a severer punishment than you can inflict, carry the matter--I say once
more--before the bishop. You will gain nothing more here. Take my word
for it, I know the man and his fellow-men; he actually knows nothing
of where your wife is hiding, and you are only wasting the time and
strength which