Part 47 (1/2)
Boss Maddox turned squarely on Pinsent. ”Give it a rest till the morning, Foxy. You boys can't fight in this darkness--not you two.”
Pinsent laughed: ”I'm not going to fight him. I'm going to thrash him.”
”Let me go, j.a.phra! Boss, let's have hands off! It's our show--no one else's.”
Boss Maddox went back to his first contention. ”This can't end here, Stingo,” and j.a.phra answered him: ”Nay, there's blood to be let, Boss.
We can't stop it--nor have call to.” He released Percival while he spoke, but kept a hand on him, and motioned Stingo's arms away. He spoke in his slow habit, and with seeming reluctance, but there was a glimmer of relish in his voice. ”They've to settle it, Boss.”
”Will you fight him, Pinsent?” Boss Maddox asked.
Pinsent shook off the clutches upon him. He came forward two deliberate paces, and with great deliberation stretched himself, and with great deliberation spat upon the ground. Then fixed his eye on Percival. ”If he likes to get out of it with a whipping,” Pinsent said, ”I'll learn him the manners he wants with your whip and let him off at that. If he's got the guts to stand up, I'll roast him till he lays down.” He thrust forward his body towards Percival and said mockingly: ”Which way? Which way, my pretty gentleman?”
Percival's face was a white lamp in the dusky night. ”Give us room!”
he said.
Then Pinsent's voice lost its deliberate drawl and rasped out in a rasp that showed his breeding and showed his hate: ”I want light to serve you up, my gentleman! Light and a pair of shoes! Christ! I've waited too long for this to spoil it. I've a pattern to put on that pretty face of yours--not in this dark. Where'll I fight him, Boss? Where?”
”Along the road in the morning.”
Percival came up. ”I'll not wait, Boss. You've heard him. I'll not wait.”
Pinsent rasped: ”Morning be withered! Now! Now, while I'm hot.
Where'll I fight him?”
Boss Maddox peered at his watch, then looked across the booths. ”Nigh midnight--few left yonder. We'll be shut down in twenty minutes. At one o'clock.”
And j.a.phra, a strange tremble in his voice: ”In your tent, Boss. The boys will want to watch this. Room there, and good light.”
Boss Maddox turned to Pinsent: ”Good for you? The circus tent?”
”The place for it,” Pinsent said. ”Sharp at one. j.a.phra, you and me are ring men; come and settle a point.”
”Come thou to me,” j.a.phra answered him st.u.r.dily. ”Thou and I!--I knew the ring, the knuckle ring, before thou sucked.”
”Come to the tent,” Boss Maddox interposed. ”Best settle there.”
j.a.phra took Percival a s.p.a.ce away. ”Lay thee down,” he said. His voice was frankly trembling now, and he pressed both Percival's hands in his. ”Bide by my words; bide by them. Lay thee down till I return to thee. Forget thy spite against yonder fox. Ima!”
She was at his side, her hands clasped together, her face white and strained.
”Forget him his spite, and what comes, Ima. While he lies, with a rug and with his boots from his feet, bide thou there and read to him--Crusoe, eh? Stingo and I will make for thee, master. I am not long gone.”
CHAPTER IV
FOXY PINSENT _V._ j.a.pHRA's GENTLEMAN
I