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A tall man, much stooped in the shoulders, was walking slowly
with bended head and clasped hands in the centre of the path. He
was dressed from head to foot in a long white linen cloth, and a
high white cap with a red cross printed upon it. His gown was
turned back from his shoulders, and the flesh there was a sight
to make a man wince, for it was all beaten to a pulp, and the
blood was soaking into his gown and trickling down upon the
ground. Behind him walked a smaller man with his hair touched
with gray, who was clad in the same white garb. He intoned a
long whining rhyme in the French tongue, and at the end of every
line he raised a thick cord, all jagged with pellets of lead, and
smote his companion across the shoulders until the blood spurted
again. Even as the three wayfarers stared, however, there was a
sudden change, for the smaller man, having finished his song,
loosened his own gown and handed the scourge to the other, who
took up the stave once more and lashed his companion with all the
strength of his bare and sinewy arm.


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