d lunge out. But he had the weight and strength and length
of reach, and my first lesson was a very short one. I went down early
in the round. But it did me good; the blow and the look I'd seen
in Romany's eyes knocked all the sentiment out of me. Jack said
nothing,--he seemed to regard it as a hopeless job from the first.
Next round I tried to remember some things Jack had told me, and made a
better show, but I went down in the end.

I felt Jack breathing quick and trembling as he lifted me up.

'How are you, Joe?' he whispered.

'I'm all right,' I said.

'It's all right,' whispered Jack in a voice as if I was going to be
hanged, but it would soon be all over. 'He can't use his hands much more
than you can--take your time, Joe--try to remember something I told you,
for God's sake!'

When two men fight who don't know how to use their hands, they stand a
show of knocking each other about a lot. I got some awful thumps,
but mostly on the body. Jimmy Nowlett began to get excited and jump
round--he was an excitable little fellow.

'Fight! you----!' he yelled. 'Why don't you fight? That ain't fightin'.
Fight, and don't try to murder each other. Use your crimson hands or, by
God, I'll chip you! Fight, or I'll blanky well bullock-whip the pair of
you;' then his language got awful. They said we went like windmills, and
that nearly every one of the blows we made was enough to kill a bullock
if it had got home. Jimmy stopped us once, but they held him back.

Presently I went down pretty flat, but the blow was well up on the head
and didn't matter much--I had a good thick skull. And I had one good eye
yet.

'For God's sake, hit him!' whispered Jack--he was trembling like a leaf.
'Don't mind what I told you. I wish I was fighting him myself! Get a
blow home, for God's sake! Make a good show this round and I'll stop the
fight.'

That showed how little even Jack, my old mate, understood me.

I had the Bushman up in me now, and wasn't going to be beaten while
I could think. I was wonderfully cool, and learning to fight. There's
nothing like a fight to teach a man. I was thinking fast, and learning
more in three seconds than Jack's sparring could have taught me in three
weeks. People think that blows hurt in a fight, but they don't--not
till afterwards. I fancy that a fighting man, if he isn't altogether an
animal, suffers more mentally than he does physically.

While I was getting my wind I could hear through the moonligh