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The planter and the boy seated themselves. The slaves were herded into the square. And Henry saw a naked black figure squirm and writhe at the end of a rope while the negroes rocked themselves back and forth on the ground and moaned; while the white slaves gritted their teeth and cursed harshly to keep from shrieking. The Caribs squatted on their hams and watched with no particular interest and no fear. Thus they might squat and watch the fire which cooked their food.

When it was all over, and the black victim hung limply by his crooked neck, the planter looked down and saw that Henry was crying nervously.

“I know it is bad the first time,” he said gently. "When I first saw it, I did not sleep for a good while. But after a little, when you have seen five———ten———a dozen———go out in this way, you will come to have no feeling about it, and no more thought of it than of a chicken flopping about with a wrung neck.”

Henry's breath still came in little miserable chokes.

“I can show you in the works of Holmaron on the practices of the Inquisition, a dissertation on this very thing you feel. ‘The first time one sees human suffering,’ he says, ‘it is an unnatural thing, because, within one’s experience, placid, comfortable people are the rule. But, after a number of such experiences, the sight of torture becomes a normal thing, and normal humans come to relish it to various extents.” Remind me to show you the