we did with
Con O'More last Candlemas. But let us work slowly, for there is no
haste, and we must break his will. In the end we will nail him to the
door, and finish by breaking all his bones. It will be very interesting,
eh?"

A fierce howl and clash of steel answered him from the men. At another
sign from Red Murrough, Brian felt himself jerked to the floor suddenly,
and his hands were drawn up over his head. His wrist-chains were
fastened to an iron ring set in the floor, and his ankles to another,
and he stared up at the ceiling-rafters of the hall, watching the motes
drift past overhead in the reaching sunbeams. It all seemed very unreal
to him.

"First that long hair of his," said the Dark Master quietly.

Murrough went to the fire and returned with a blazing stick. Brian's
gold-red hair had flung back from his head, along the floor, and
presently he felt it burning, until his head was scorched and his brain
began to roast and there was the smell of burnt hair rising from him.
Then Murrough's rough hand brushed over his torn scalp, quelling the
fire, but it did not quell the agony that wrenched Brian.

"Paint him," ordered O'Donnell.

Again Murrough went to the fireplace, and returned with a long white-hot
iron which had lain among the embers. This he touched to Brian's right
shoulder, so that the stench of scorched flesh sizzled up in a thin
stream, and followed the iron down across the white breast and thigh,
until it stopped at the knee, and there was a swath of red and blackened
flesh down Brian's body. Yet he had not moved or flinched.

Then Murrough touched the iron to his left shoulder and drew it very
slowly down his left side. One of the watching men went sick with the
smell and went out vomiting. A second swath of red and black rose on the
white flesh, and beneath it all Brian felt his senses swirling. Try as
he would he could not repress one long shudder, at which a wild yell of
delight shrilled up--and then he fainted.

"Take him away," said the Dark Master, smiling a little, as he leaned
forward and saw that Brian had indeed swooned with the pain. "To-morrow
we will paint his back with the whip."

So they loosened him from the iron rings, and four men lifted him and
carried him out. As they passed across the courtyard another came by
with a pail of sea-water, which they flung over him; the salt entered
into his wounds, washing away the blackness from his scalp, and slowly
the life came back