h of the best heavy-weight, Dam combined the lightning
rapidity and mobility of the best feather-weight.

His own doubt as to the result of his contest with the heavy-weight
Champion of India arose from the fact that the latter was a person of
much lower nervous development, a creature far less sensitive to
shock, a denser and more elementary organism altogether, and possessed
of a far thicker skull, shorter jaw, and thicker neck. Dam summed him
up thus with no sense of contemptuous superiority, but with a plain
recognition of the facts that the Champion was a fighting machine, a
dull, foreheadless, brutal gladiator who owed his championship very
largely to the fact that he was barely sensible to pain, and
impervious to padded blows. It was said that he had never been knocked
out in all his boxing-career, that the kick of a horse on his chin
would not knock him out, that his head was solid bone, and that the
shortness of his jaw and thickness of his neck absolutely prevented
sufficient leverage between the point of the jaw and the spinal cord
for the administration of the shock to the _medulla oblongata_ that
causes the necessary ten-seconds' unconsciousness of the "knock-out".

He was known as the Gorilla by reason of his long arms, incredible
strength, beauty, and pleasing habits, and he bore the reputation of a
merciless and unchivalrous opponent and one who needed the strictest
and most experienced refereeing. It would be a real terrific fight,
and that was the main thing to Dam, though he would do his very utmost
to win, for the credit of the Queen's Greys, and would leave no stone
unturned to that end. He regretted that he could not get leave and go
to Pultanpur to see the Champion box, and learn something of his style
and methods when easily defending his title in the Pultanpur
tournament. And when the Tournament and Assault-at-Arms were over he
must find something else to occupy him by day and tire him before
night. Meanwhile life was bearable, with the fight to come--except for
sentry-go work. That was awful, unspeakable, and each time was worse
than the last. Sitting up all night in the guard-room under the big
lamp, and perhaps with some other wakeful wretch to talk to, was
nothing. That was well enough--but to be on a lonely post on a dark
night ... well--he couldn't do it much longer.

Darkness and the Snake that was always coming and never came! To prowl
round and round some magazine, store, or boundary-