Part 1 (1/2)
The Bars of Iron.
by Ethel May Dell.
PROLOGUE
”Fight? I'll fight you with pleasure, but I shall probably kill you if I do. Do you want to be killed?” Brief and contemptuous the question fell.
The speaker was a mere lad. He could not have been more than nineteen.
But he held himself with the superb British a.s.surance that has its root in the British public school and which, once planted, in certain soils is wholly ineradicable.
The man he faced was considerably his superior in height and build. He also was British, but he had none of the other's careless ease of bearing. He stood like an angry bull, with glaring, bloodshot eyes.
He swore a terrific oath in answer to the scornful enquiry. ”I'll break every bone in your body!” he vowed. ”You little, sneering bantam, I'll smash your face in! I'll thrash you to a pulp!”
The other threw up his head and laughed. He was sublimely unafraid. But his dark eyes shone red as he flung back the challenge. ”All right, you drunken bully! Try!” he said.
They stood in the garish light of a Queensland bar, surrounded by an eager, gaping crowd of farmers, boundary-riders, sheep-shearers, who had come down to this towns.h.i.+p on the coast on business or pleasure at the end of the shearing season.
None of them knew how the young Englishman came to be among them. He seemed to have entered the drinking-saloon without any very definite object in view, unless he had been spurred thither by a spirit of adventure. And having entered, a boyish interest in the motley crowd, which was evidently new to him, had induced him to remain. He had sat in a corner, keenly observant but wholly un.o.btrusive, for the greater part of an hour, till in fact the attention of the great bully now confronting him had by some ill-chance been turned in his direction.
The man was three parts drunk, and for some reason, not very comprehensible, he had chosen to resent the presence of this clean-limbed, clean-featured English lad. Possibly he recognized in him a type which for its very cleanness he abhorred. Possibly his sodden brain was stirred by an envy which the Colonials round him were powerless to excite. For he also was British-born. And he still bore traces, albeit they were not very apparent at that moment, of the breed from which he had sprung.
Whatever the cause of his animosity, he had given it full and ready vent.
A few coa.r.s.e expressions aimed in the direction of the young stranger had done their work. The boy had risen to go, with disgust written openly upon his face, and instantly the action had been seized upon by the older man as a cause for offence.
He had not found his victim slow to respond. In fact his challenge had been flung back with an alacrity that had somewhat astonished the bystanders and rendered interference a matter of some difficulty.
But one of them did at this juncture make his voice heard in a word of admonition to the half-tipsy aggressor.
”You had better mind what you do, Samson. There will be a row if that young chap gets hurt.”
”Yes, he'd better get out of it,” said one or two.
But the young chap in question turned on them with a flash of his white teeth. ”Don't you worry yourselves!” he said. ”If he wants to fight--let him!”
They muttered uneasily in answer. It was plain that Samson's bull-strength was no allegory to them. But the boy's confidence remained quite unimpaired. He faced his adversary with the l.u.s.t of battle in his eyes.
”Come on, you slacker!” he said. ”I like a good fight. Don't keep me waiting!”
The bystanders began to laugh, and the man they called Samson turned purple with rage. He flung round furiously. ”There's a yard at the back,”
he cried. ”We'll settle it there. I'll teach you to use your spurs on me, my young game-c.o.c.k!”
”Come on then!” said the stranger. ”P'r'aps I shall teach you something too! You'll probably be killed, as I said before; but if you'll take the risk I have no objection.”
Again the onlookers raised a laugh. They pressed round to see the face of the English boy who was so supremely unafraid. It was a very handsome face, but it was not wholly English. The eyes were too dark and too pa.s.sionate, the straight brows too black, the features too finely regular. The mouth was mobile, and wayward as a woman's, but the chin might have been modelled in stone--a fighting chin, aggressive, indomitable. There was something of the ancient Roman about the whole cast of his face which, combined with that high British bearing, made him undeniably remarkable. Those who looked at him once generally turned to look again.
One of the spectators--a burly Australian farmer--pushed forward from the throng and touched his arm. ”Look here, my son!” he said in an undertone.
”You've no business here, and no call to fight whatever. Clear out of it--quick! Savvy? I'll cover your tracks.”
The boy drew himself up with a haughty movement. Plainly for the moment he resented the advice. But the next very suddenly he smiled.