The victim of this horrible punishment is trussed up, arms and legs, and thrown on his knees; then, on the bare soles of his feet a pliant green rod is brought down with all the force of a soldier's arm.

The pain is exquisite; blood leaps out at the first cut, and strong men usually faint after thirty or forty strokes.

Strange to say, the worst part of it is not the blow itself, but the whistling of the rod through the air as it rushes to its mark.

The groans of my older comrades, whose gasps and prayers I could hear through the walls of the cell, helped me bear the agony until unconsciousness mercifully came to the rescue.
For several days more we were kept in the prison, sick and broken with suffering.

The second night, as I lay sleepless and desperate on the strip of dirty matting that served as bed, I heard a scratch-scratching at the grated slit of a window, and presently a slender stick was inserted into the cell.