you throw at Mazeppa to lame him? Answer me at
once."

Bunty gave a shuddering glance at the whip.

"N-n-nothin'," he answered--"n--nothin' at all. My c--c--cricket
b--ball was up in the st--st--stables. I was only p--p--playin'
marbles." The Captain gave him a little shake.

"Did you lame Mazeppa with the cricket ball?" he said sternly.

"N--n--no I n--never," Bunty whispered, white to the lips. Then
semi-repentance came to him, and he added: "It just rolled out of my
p--p--pocket, and M--Mazeppa was passing and h--h--hit his l-leg on it."

"Speak the truth, or I'll thrash you within an inch of your life," the
Captain said, standing up, and seizing Esther's whip: "Now then, sir--was
it you lamed Mazeppa?"

"Yes," said Bunty, bursting into a roar of crying, and madly dodging
the whip.

Then, as the strokes descended on his unhappy shoulders, he filled
the air with his familiar wail of "'Twasn't me, 'twasn't my fault!"

"You contemptible young cur!" said his father, pausing a moment when
his arm ached with wielding the whip. "I'll thrash this mean spirit
of lying and cowardice out of you, or kill you in the attempt." Swish,
swish. "What sort of a man do you think you'll make?" Swish, swish.
"Telling lies just to save your miserable skin!" Swish, swish,
swish, swish.

"You've killed me--oh, you've killed me! I know you have!" yelled
the wretched child, squirming all over the floor. "'Twasn't me,
'twasn't my fault--hit the others some."

Swish, swish, swish. "Do you think the others would lie so
contemptibly? Philip never lied to me. Judy would cut her tongue out
first." Swish, swish, swish. "Going to a picnic, are you? You can
picnic in your room till to-morrow's breakfast." Swish, swish, swish.
"Pah--get away with you!"

Human endurance could go no further. The final swish had been actual
agony to his smarting, quivering shoulders and back. He thought of
the others, happy and heedless, out in the sunshine, trudging merrily
off to the river, without a thought of what he was bearing, and his
very heart seethed to burst in the hugeness of its bitterness and
despair. "Judy's home!" he said, in a choking, passionate voice.
"She lives in the old shed in the cow, paddock. Boo, hoo, hoo!
They're keepin' it secret from you. Boo, hoo. She's gone to the
picnic, and she's run away from school."

CHAPTER XIII

Uninvited Guests

The captain was walking slowly across the paddocks wi