“I will! I’ll kill ye!”

Then they went on playing their parts as if nothing unusual had happened.

“There is bad blood between them,” decided Frank, “and the fellow with the rum in him is dangerous.”

He did not realize how dangerous till the scene was being played where “Legree” lashes “Uncle Tom” to death with a heavy whip.

“Simon” came on with the whip, and there was a strange glitter in his dark eyes. With his first blow at the old slave, he caused “Uncle Tom” to collapse, uttering a yell of pain.

For the whip had whistled through the air, wielded by a powerful arm, and the hissing lash had curled about the body of “Uncle Tom.”

The audience looked on spellbound, rather astonished by the realism of this whipping scene.

Grinding his teeth together, “Legree” bent over and pitilessly cut the writhing man with the whip.

Cries of pain broke from the fallen man.

“Curse you!” Merry heard “Legree” hiss. “Here is where I fix you!”

“Help!” cried “Uncle Tom.”

It was a genuine appeal for aid. This was not acting.

Frank Merriwell started to his feet.

“Oh!” gasped little Nell—“oh, Frank, he is really murdering ‘Uncle Tom’!”

“Hanged if it doesn’t look that way!” Merry admitted to himself.

The whip dropped from “Legree’s” hand. It struck the floor heavily, but the man caught it up in a twinkling, reversing it.

Then, with the loaded butt, he struck “Uncle Tom” a savage blow on the head.

The stricken man straightened out, quivering in every limb.

With the expression of a fiend on his face, “Legree” lifted the heavy whip again to bring the butt down upon the man’s head. It seemed to be his purpose to smash the skull of the actor he hated.

As one man, the audience rose and stood, uttering a 

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