Part 1 (2/2)

”Thanks! Don't trouble! I can hold my own and a bit over. There's no great difficulty in downing a drunken brute like that.”

”Don't you be too c.o.c.k-sure!” the farmer warned him. ”He's a heavy weight, and he's licked bigger men than you when he's been in just the state he's in now.”

But the English boy only laughed, and turned to follow his adversary.

Every man present pressed after him. A well-sustained fight, though an event of no uncommon occurrence, was a form of entertainment that never failed to attract. They crowded out to the back premises in a body, unhindered by any in authority.

A dingy backyard behind the house furnished ground for the fray. Here the spectators gathered in a ring around an arc of light thrown by a stable-lamp over the door, and the man they called Samson proceeded with savage energy to strip to the waist.

The young stranger's face grew a shade more disdainful as he noted the action. He himself removed coat, waistcoat, and collar, all of which he handed to the farmer who had offered to a.s.sist him in making good his escape.

”Just look after these for a minute!” he said.

”You're a cool hand,” said the other man admiringly. ”I'll see you don't get bullied anyhow.”

The young man nodded his thanks. He looked down at his hands and slowly clenched and opened them again.

”Oh, I shan't be bullied,” he said, in a tone of grim conviction.

And then the fight began.

It was obvious from the outset that it could not be a very prolonged one.

Samson attacked with furious zest. He evidently expected to find his opponent very speedily at his mercy, and he made no attempt to husband his strength. But his blows went wide. The English lad avoided them with an agility that kept him practically unscathed. Had he been a hard hitter, he might have got in several blows himself, but he only landed one or two. His face was set and white as a marble mask in which only the eyes lived--eyes that watched with darting intensity for the chance to close. And when that chance came he took it so suddenly and so unexpectedly that not one of the hard-breathing, silent crowd around him saw exactly how he gained his hold. One moment he was avoiding a smas.h.i.+ng, right-handed blow; the next he had his adversary locked in a grip of iron, the while he bent and strained for the mastery.

From then onwards an element that was terrible became apparent in the conflict. From a simple fisticuff it developed into a deadly struggle between skilled strength and strength that was merely brutal. Silently, with heaving, convulsive movements, the two struggling figures swayed to and fro. One of Samson's arms was imprisoned in that unyielding clutch.

The other rained blows upon his adversary's head and shoulders that produced no further effect than if they had been bestowed upon cast-iron.

The grip of the boy's arms only grew tighter and tighter with snake-like force, while a dreadful smile came into the young face and became stamped there, engraved in rigid lines. His lower lip was caught between his teeth, and a thin stream of blood ran from it over the smooth, clean-cut chin. It was the only sign he gave that he was putting forth the whole of his strength.

A murmur of surprise that had in it a note of uneasiness began to run through the ring of onlookers. They had seen many a fight before, but never a fight like this. Samson's face had gone from red to purple. His eyes had begun to start. Quite plainly he also was taken by surprise.

Desperately, with a streaming forehead, he changed his tactics. He had no skill. Until that day he had relied upon superior strength and weight to bring him victorious through every casual fray; and it had never before failed him. But that merciless, suffocating hold compelled him to abandon offensive measures to effect his escape. He stopped his wild and futile hammering and with his one free hand he grasped the back of his opponent's neck.

The move was practically inevitable, but its effect was such as only one antic.i.p.ated. That one was his adversary, who slowly bent under his weight as though overcome thereby, s.h.i.+fting his grip lower and lower till it almost looked as if he were about to collapse altogether. But just as the breaking-point seemed to be reached there came a change. He gathered himself together and with gigantic exertion began to straighten his bent muscles. Slowly but irresistibly he heaved his enemy upwards. There came a moment of desperate, confused struggle; and then, as the man lost his balance at last, he relaxed his grip quite suddenly, flinging him headlong over his shoulder.

It was a clean throw, contrived with masterly a.s.surance, the result of deliberate and trained calculation. The bully pitched upon his head on the rough stones of the yard, and turned a complete somersault with the violence of his fall.

A shout of amazement went up from the spectators. This end of the struggle was totally unexpected.

The successful combatant remained standing with the sweat pouring from his face and the blood still running down his chin. He stretched out his arms with a slow, mechanical movement as if to test the condition of his muscles after the tremendous strain he had put upon them. Then, still as it were mechanically, he felt the torn collar-band of his s.h.i.+rt, with speculative fingers. Finally he whizzed round on the heels and stared at the huddled form of his fallen foe.

A shabby little man with thick, sandy eyebrows had gone to his a.s.sistance, but he lay quite motionless in a twisted, ungainly att.i.tude.

The flare of the lamp was reflected in his gla.s.sy, upturned eyes. Dumbly his conqueror stood staring down at him. He seemed to stand above them all in that his moment of dreadful victory.

He spoke at length, and through his voice there ran a curious tremor as of a man a little giddy, a little dazed by immense and appalling height.

”I thought I could do it!” he said. ”I--thought I could!”

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