You're a brave lad." "No, I'm not," said Nic, letting himself sink back on the sunny herbage, for he felt sick and giddy.

"It was horrible: it made me turn faint.
Why did you do that ?" He spoke now in indignant anger.
"Because I was a brute," said the man hoarsely.

"They've made me a brute.

I thought I would try you and see what was in you.

There, go back home and tell them," he cried, with his voice growing intensely bitter; "and you can have the pleasure of seeing me flogged." "What!" cried Nic, forgetting his own feelings in seeing the way the man was moved.