"Pietro, my stick!" The two boys began to strip mechanically, knowing that there was no appeal.

Phil stood bare to the waist.

The padrone seized the stick and began to belabor him.

Phil's brown face showed by its contortions the pain he suffered, but he was too proud to cry out.

When the punishment was finished his back was streaked with red, and looked maimed and bruised.
"Put on your shirt!" commanded the tyrant.
Phil drew it on over his bleeding back and resumed his place among his comrades.
"Now!" said the padrone, beckoning to Giacomo.
The little boy approached shivering, not so much with cold as with the fever that had already begun to prey upon him.
Phil turned pale and sick as he looked at the padrone preparing to inflict punishment.