He fought like a wild beast, but he fought like a fair one. Buoyed up by his insane hate for his enemy and by his stark craving for vengeance, he was as a man in delirium. The hideous punishment meted out to him had no visible effect on his maniac strength or speed. His madness did not preclude the use of all the skill he could muster, but it made him impervious to pain and to shock.
Round after round the fight slashed on, while the crowd screamed and pounded in delight and while Red Keegan and Curly watched their madman with anguished eyes. Willing to take the heaviest blow, if only he might land as heavy a smash in return, Dan tore away at his foe.
Four times he was knocked down. Once he was unconscious for five seconds. But borne ever onward by that wild urge of revenge he came flying back to the combat with undiminished fury.
Flesh and blood could not stand the fearful tax indefinitely. Through all his mania Rorke began dimly to realise that there was a trifle less crushing vehemence in his own punches and less whirlwind speed in his onslaught. With every atom of will and of rage and of resolve in his whole cosmos, he scourged himself to renewed effort. The welter of blows avalanched upon him, unfelt.
Over and over in his hot brain he was saying:
“Watch me do it, Jeff! Watch me do it, square!”
And he fought on.
As Dan reeled back to his corner at the end of the hammer-and-tongs ninth round he heard, as from miles off, Keegan’s voice whispering to him:
“Try out the good old stunts, Danny! ’Tain’t too late, even yet. He’s groggy. Try ’em. Curly tells me he’s making a joke of how he killed Jeff. Says he kicked the poor purp yesterday, too, when he met him in the street. He——”
Dan heard no more. The minute’s rest was over almost before it began. His ears ringing with the tale of the kick, he plunged back into the fight.