Chapter XVI

The two men emerged from the shed where they had put away their coats. They were stripped to the waist. The couple of lamps that the yard provided, lit up their skin--sickly yellow--and the surrounding houses flung shadows in confusion.

"They'll have a job to hit straight," said Traill, tensely. His eyes were riveted before him. He did not look at her, did not see her white, drawn face. She raised her head, gazing at the black, leaden patch of sky that was to be seen through the muddle of roofs and walls. A wondering crossed her mind of all the horrible sights and scenes that were being enacted under that same impenetrable curtain of darkness which hung over everything. She rubbed her hand across her eyes, but could not wipe it out.

When she looked back again, the men were surrounded by their little groups of supporters--not more than half a dozen in each party. All but the two combatants were talking in excited undertones--giving advice--saying what they would do--standing on tiptoe and talking over each other's shoulders--pushing those away who came between them and the expression of their own opinions. And in the centre of each of these groups stood the two who were about to be at each other's throats. Except for their bared shoulders, dazzling patches of light against the dark clothes of the men surrounding them--they looked the least aggressive in the crowd. They said nothing. Their heads bent forward listening to the medley of voices that hummed unintelligibly in their ears, and their eyes roamed from one face to another, or through the clustering of heads to the other crowd beyond.

"Told you they'd be funked by all this ceremony," said Traill. "They're beginning to wish it was over, I should think. Hang it, why don't they begin? They'll get so cold it'll be like beating frozen meat."

Sally looked at him in amazement. All the hardness, all the cruelty, she saw then. But it did not succeed in turning her from him. She stood wondering at her own passive consent, yet could not bring herself to risk his offence by declaring that she would not stay. Of his selfishness, she saw nothing. Had his attitude in the affair been pointed out to her as frankly inconsiderate, she would have denied it with fervour. Inconsiderate? It was only her weakness of spirit. Why should he be blamed for that? If she loathed the sight of what was taking place before her, then just as surely he revelled in it. Why should he be expected to give way to her? She would give way to him--willingly--freely--without question or doubt.

Now, as she looked again, a man had stepped out of the crowd holding a watch in his hand. There was a tone of command in his voice. It was evidently he who was the master of ceremonies.

"I've seen that chap at the National Sporting," said Traill, quickly. "I guessed there must be some system about this. You see, he's going to act as timekeeper and referee."

"Come on," exclaimed the man referred to. "I ain't goin' to wait 'ere the 'ole bloomin' night. Get a move on for Gawd's sake. If you ain't made all yer bets, yer'll 'ave ter do it after the show's begun. Come on an' bloody-well shake 'ands and start."

Even when that word was uttered, loathsome enough in itself for a woman's ears, yet indicative of many worse that were to come, Traill did not think of Sally. She glanced at him when she had heard it, remembering what he had once said to her--"I belong to the National Sporting--because there's a beast in every man--thank God!"

The two combatants sifted their way out of the little crowds. They came slowly towards each other, rubbing their bare arms to encourage the circulation. Neither the one nor the other seemed anxious for what was to come. Sally looked tremblingly at their faces and shuddered. One of them was clean-shaven, the other wore a moustache. Both had the deep blue shadows of the day's growth of beard upon the chin and, in that morbid yellow lamplight, their eyes were sunk in hollows dull and black as charcoal.

"Now, who's attending to Morrison?" said the master of ceremonies.

Two men stepped forward out of the crowd.

"Well--get over there at that side. Got yer towels? And the men for Tucker? Come on! Come on!"

He relegated them to their positions, and the little group of men fell away, leaving the two antagonists alone in an open space.

"Now shake 'ands, gentlemen, please," said the master. "'Urry up for Gawd's sake--I'm getting stiff, I am."

They made no motion of obedience, and he looked from one to the other. Even from their window, they could see in his face the clouds of the storm that was about to burst.

"Oh, I can understand now," exclaimed Traill, in an undertone. He addressed the remark to Sally, but his face scarcely turned in her direction. "You see, these chaps have a quarrel and they're going to fight it out under rules and regulations. They've got this fellow who knows something about boxing--at least I presume he does--to come and manage the affair. Probably he knows nothing of the quarrel. He expects them to shake hands, but I'm hanged if they're going to. By Jove! There'll be a mess here if the police get to hear anything."

"But why should they shake hands if they're going to fight?" asked Sally, forcing spurious interest. So she bled herself--sapping vitality to give him pleasure. And he took it--as a man will--unconscious of receiving anything.

"Why? Oh--it's the rules of boxing. The whole thing is supposed to be done in a friendly spirit. These chaps down here would probably cut each other's throats for a song. What's the good of their shaking hands?"

The combatants were still standing reluctant. It seemed for the moment as if the whole affair were about to topple over into a state of confusion.

"Go on, Jim," urged one man in the ring; "shake 'ands wiv 'im. Damn 'is eyes--'e's a gen'leman--ain't 'e? Go 'arn, shake 'ands."

"Look 'ere," said the master, "if there's any of yer blasted bunkum about this, yer can damn well see to it yourselves. I won't touch yer bloody money."

The words shuddered through Sally's ears.

"Go 'arn, Jim, shake 'ands. Can't yer see 'e'll drop the 'ole bloomin' show if yer don't, an' damn it, I've got a couple o' bob on yer. Shake 'ands, can't yer!"

Jim came reluctantly forward into the centre of the ring with a knotted hand held grudgingly before them. The other took it and dropped it as if it were filth.

"That's right," said the master, "now, come on. Two minutes a round--minute wait. Not more 'n ten rounds. And God save us if the coppers don't 'ave us by then. Come up--up with yer flippers! Time!" He tipped a leering wink to the crowd.

The two men edged together, their arms bent in defensive, one clenched fist held menacingly before them. Sally tried to take her eyes away, but a morbid fascination held them. The anticipation of that first blow dragged her as the butcher drags his sheep to the shambles. Every glance she stole in their direction was reluctant; but all power of volition seemed to have left her. The sight of those two half-stripped bodies, gleaming in the gas-light, had concentrated in her eyes. At that moment they filled, obsessed her vision.

"There's not much style about them," muttered Traill. He was leaning far out now, his elbows on the window-sill, his hands supporting his face--the attitude of concentrated interest. "You'll see, they'll go on dancing round each other like this for the whole of the first round. Just what I said--Japanese dancing mice."

So they sidled, ridiculous to see, had it not been in such vivid earnest. Now one feinted a blow, then the next. At each lurching attempt Sally caught the breath in her throat. It freed itself automatically with the lack of tension.

At last in a moment of over-balance--a blow from one of them that struck air and pitched the striker forward--they rushed together, each grunting like swine as the breath was driven out of them. Sally clutched the curtain at her side. Her fingers tore at the fabric.

"Break away, break away!" called the master; and when neither of them loosed his hold for fear the other would strike, he took him whom they called Jim by the shoulder and pushed him bodily backwards. The other followed him with a blow like the arm of a windmill in a gale. Traill chuckled with delight between his hands.

"Time!" called the master, and Jim, striking a futile blow that glanced harmlessly off the shoulder of his opponent, at which the little ring sent up its titter of laughter, they returned to their attendants.

Traill looked round. "What I said, you see," he remarked; "not one blow went home in the first round. Yet they're fanning them with towels--ridiculous, isn't it?" In the excitement of his interest, he spoke to her as though she were as well acquainted with the manners of the ring as he.

Once more they were called into the open. Once more they slouched forward with the advice that their backers had poured into their ears still gyrating in a wild confusion in their minds. That one minute had seemed interminable to Sally; yet she realized how small a speck of time it must have appeared to them.

"Do you think they'll hit each other this time?" she whispered.

"Well, let's hope so," said Traill. "It's pretty dull as it is. There isn't much sport in this sort of thing if you can't hit straight. Oh, one of them'll land a blow presently. They want warming, that's all."

His words sounded far away but absolutely distinct. She scarcely recognized in them the man whom she had been talking to but half an hour before. His whole expression of speech was different. The lust of this spirit of animalism was uppermost. He was a different being; yet still she clung to him. "There's a beast in every man, thank God!" Just those few words chased in circles through her brain. They had meant nothing to her; she had barely understood them before. Now they lived with reality, and so deeply had his influence penetrated into the very heart of her desire, that she knew she would not have had him different.

Then her eyes dragged back to the scene below her. The men were still sparring; waiting--as Traill had said--for the first falling blow to heat their blood to boiling. At last it fell. Jim Morrison, in a false moment of vantage, rushed in, head down, arms drawn back like the crank shafts of some unresisting engine, ready to deal the crushing body blows. Sally's eyes were wide in a gaping stare. She expected to see the other fall, waited to hear the grunt of the breath as it crushed out of him. But it did not come. She did not try to think how it happened; she only saw Morrison's head shoot upwards from a blow that seemed to rise from the earth. For a moment he poised before his man, head lifted, eyes on the second dazed with the concussion. And then fell Tucker's second blow--the heavy lunge of the body, the thump of the right foot as it came down upon the stroke, and the lightning flash of that bare left arm as it shot through the ugly shadows and found its mark. Sally heard the thud, the void, hollow sound as when the butcher wields his chopper on the naked bone. She saw one glimpse of the bloody face as it fell out of the circle of light into the shadows that hung about the ground, and the little cry that drove its way between her teeth was drowned by Traill's exclamatory delight.

"Good left!" he called out excitedly; "follow it up, man! Follow it up! Don't let him forget it!" Through the fogged haze of sensation, in which for the moment she was almost lost, Sally heard the sudden cessation of voices below. She heard the scurrying of feet and Traill's low chuckle of ironical laughter.

"It's all right!" he called to them. "Go on as far as I'm concerned. I'm nothing to do with the police. You know your own job better than I do. I don't want to interfere with it. Go on."

The voices commenced their chattering again, through which excitement, like a wandering bee, hummed a moving note.

"You won't make any fuss, will yer, mister?" the master's voice could be heard saying.

"I? Make a fuss? No; why the devil should I? Go on!"

"Third round!" said the master.

Then for a moment Sally's eyes opened. In one of the corners sat Morrison on the knee of an attendant, who was sponging the blood from his face, whilst another flapped a towel before him. She took a deep breath as he rose slowly to his feet and came forward to meet his man. Directly the shuffling sound of feet began again, she closed her eyes once more, holding with fingers numbed and cold to the fringe of the curtain beside her. All the sounds then trooped in pictures before her mind. When she heard the stamp of the foot, the dull slapping thud of the heavy blow, and the moaning rush of breath, she saw that bleeding face falling out of the sickly lamplight into the sooty shadows.

At last she could bear it no longer. Her imagination was gloating in her mind over the horrors that it drew. She forced her eyes to look. It was better to see the worst than conjure still worse terrors in her mind. She let her sight rush to those two half-naked bodies; it sped unerringly to the spot like a filing of iron to the magnet's teeth.

Now Tucker had regained the advantage which that momentary interruption of Traill's had lost him. His man was swaying before him as a sack of sawdust swings inert to the vibrating motion of speed. His blows were falling short and fast. No great force was behind them. He had no time to give them force. But they were bewildering--the stones of hail upon the naked eyes. Morrison dropped slowly and slowly backwards, one staggering step at a time; his defenceless arms held feebly like broken straws before his face. From nose to chin, from chin to neck, and from the neck in a spreading stream across his chest, the blood--black in that light--trickled like molten glue. In his eyes, she could see that questioning glare, the stupid senseless gaze of a man drunk with exhaustion. And still the blows fell to the murmuring accompaniment of that gloating crowd--fell steadily, shortly, tappingly, like the beating of a stick upon dead meat.

"He's got him now, by Jove! he's got him now," she just heard Traill muttering, and then the yellow lamplight slowly went out into the shadows; the deep, black curtain of the sky slowly descended over the whole scene; she felt a cold wind full of moisture fanning gently upon her forehead and her lips; she heard the muffled sounds going further and further away as though some great hand were spreading a black velvet cloth over it all; then Traill heard her uncomplaining moan, and felt the dead weight of her senseless body as it lurched against his own.