.

'Shut up, you!' cried Kyley. 'The lad's fightin' his own battle, an'
fightin' it well. He could wipe the floor with a bunch of you.'

Breathing heavily, and looking extremely ugly under his blood and
bruises, Pete followed Jim round, watching for an opportunity to rush in
and grip him. He felt that it was only necessary for him to get the
smaller man in his arms to settle the contest once and for all; but Jim
fought him warily, sparring, ducking, and dodging, cutting Pete again and
again with left-hand punches, or clipping him neatly with a swinging
right when an opening offered. Taking advantage of an instant when Done
was driven against the line of men, Quigley bore in, shaking his head
from a blow that might have felled a bullock, and, clasping Jim round the
waist, deliberately carried him into the centre of the ring, making
nothing of the short-arm punches that cut like a hammer. Three times he
tried to dash Done to the ground, but the latter was lithe as a serpent,
and his limbs writhed themselves about Quigley and clung tenaciously. The
crowd was shouting the two men's names, and exchanging cries of triumph
and abuse. Suddenly an arm shot across Pete's breast, an elbow was driven
into his throat, the two men wheeled, and the big one was sprung from his
feet and sent down, with a stunning shock. The yelling ceased suddenly,
every eye was upon Quigley.

'My God! he's killed!' said one awed voice.

They dragged Pete to his corner, and Jim submitted himself to the
attentions of his seconds. All the passion had gone out of his heart
before the first round was finished: there remained no emotion but the
lust of conquest. Aurora, who had watched the fight lying across the
counter under the washer-woman's restraining arm, her dark eyes shining,
her face ablaze, beat the boards with her knuckles, and cried out
incessantly, a prey to a fever of excitement that quivered in all her
flesh.

'Time!' cried Ben Kyley, and the men came to the scratch for the third
round, Pete badly shaken, but game and still eager.

'Stand in an' fight me, an' I'll belt the hide off you!' he said
savagely.

Jim laughed mockingly, and pushed his face forward, inviting the other to
lead, and when Pete lunged at it he ducked, and got right and left on to
his enemy's ribs, slipping, away under Pete's arm when he endeavoured to
return the blows. For a time Jim simply led the big man a dance round the
ring, landing a stinging blow now and the