“Good morning, madam,” said the General, abruptly entering the hall and then the inner room, followed by his four men, and paying no attention to Mercedes, who, following them all, exclaimed, each time more afflicted:
“What do you wish, sir? What are you looking for? Why have these men come here?”
Once in the room, the General stopped near the door, and, as he expected, saw under the bed the coiled up body of the student who would gladly have given his whiskers to be elsewhere.
“Drag out that shameless fellow,” said the General to his men, “and beat him for me.”
“Señor, for God’s sake!” cried Mercedes.
The four men obeyed the order. The unhappy student did not even try to escape. One took him by the feet and dragged him out into the middle of the room; the others began to discharge a hail of blows upon him, distributing them evenly over the shoulders, back, seat, and legs of that unfortunate, who squirmed upon the floor like an epileptic, writhing, screaming, and howling, with a choked voice:
“Ay! ay! they are killing me! ay! ay! help! Ay! ay! infamous fellows! assassins!”
Meantime the General looked on at that calamitous spectacle, without a word; when the flogging seemed to him sufficient he exclaimed—“Hold!” and then, addressing the man who had been flogged, added: “Be warned by this experience and let the women of other men alone.”