Again the corporal faced about and balanced himself on tiptoe.

Sachse was much the more nervous of the two.

He flinched again while waiting for the blow, but met it when it did come without a tremor of any kind.

He was much the softer.

Blood flowed from him more freely, but his pants seemed to be of sterner stuff, for they did not split until the eight-and-twentieth lash, or thereabouts.
From first to last, although the raw flesh lay open to the lash, and the corporal, urged to it by the united threats and praise of all the other sergeants, wrought his utmost, Schubert lay like a man asleep.
He might have been dead, except for the even rise and fall of his breathing, that never checked or quickened once.