Black Pawl was too wise to send home a blow a-top that lowered head. He had seen many an unwise man break a fist thus and lose thereby. As Red came near, he stepped to one side with a lagging foot, and Red stumbled over this foot, and went into the cabin wall with a crash that would have stunned a weaker man. As he straightened, Black Pawl met him with a blow full in the face that drove Red’s head back against the paneling. Then the younger man ducked, and blocked with cunning elbows and shoulders hunched high, and strove again to come to closer quarters.
Black Pawl was still too nimble for him. It was like a bullfight. Red was the bull, and Black Pawl’s blows pricked him again and again as he charged fruitlessly upon and past the older man. In the end, Red understood that what he wished to do could not be done in this way; he must stand and fight. And so he changed his tactics. Standing back, he took his ease and caught his breath while Black Pawl pushed the fighting. Red was content to guard, take what blows came, and wait till his strength was restored again.
When he was ready, he lifted his head and began.
In such fighting as this, Black Pawl had all the advantage; he was taller, and swifter of foot, and he had three inches the reach of the other man. His knuckles cut Red’s cheek, smashed Red’s mouth, beat a tattoo upon his face that would have killed another man. As for Red, he did not strike for the head. He was plugging at Black Pawl’s ribs, but Black Pawl’s fists had a way of tapping Bed’s biceps or wrists in a fashion that took the strength from these blows. Meanwhile, he landed almost at will upon his son; and any one of a dozen blows he struck would have plunged a weaker man swiftly into oblivion.
After a time this became plain to both of them. Red realized that Black Pawl could not hurt him, that he could endure the worst the older man could send; and Black Pawl knew this as quickly as his son. Nevertheless, he would cut Red to pieces with his blows. The mate must weaken in the end. He struck, and struck, and struck again.
Red lowered his head into the shelter of his left shoulder and rested his right arm, fending with the left. And he began to wait, and wait, and watch for the chance he sought. Soon or late, his father’s chin must come within reach of that waiting fist. And when it did—
His chance came quickly. He ducked a straightforward blow that slid across his shoulder, and brought Black Pawl’s face within a few inches of his own. Before the Captain could guard, Red’s right whipped up squarely on the chin, a little to the left of the point, where the full jolt of it was instantly communicated through jawbone and skull to those nerves which bear to the muscles the messages of the brain. Black Pawl went spinning backward, slack and weak and helpless; and Red gathered his breath and leaped.
There was no more than a second’s space between Red’s blow and his charge, but that second was long enough for the sickness to pass—long enough for Black Pawl to gain control of his shaking body once more. Then Red had him around the waist again; he felt his son’s hip thrust against his thigh and knew what was coming—the throw for which there is no guard, no defense except to yield to it. Black Pawl let himself go limply, but as his feet left the floor, his hands reached out and got the grip he sought. His long fingers closed on his son’s neck. He sank them home, pressing—pressing.
He was in the air, all his weight flying. Yet his hands still gripped the other’s throat. So the momentum of his own throw dragged Red Pawl forward, overbalancing him. He fell a-top Black Pawl in a rolling heap, and Black Pawl’s thumbs sank in between the great muscles at the side of the neck, and the gullet in front. Their paralyzing pressure stopped Red’s breath, stopped the blood in the great arteries that feed the brain. He felt insensibility enveloping him; then with a mighty effort he flung his elbow into Black Pawl’s throat and broke the hold. For an instant again he was free of that choking terror. They were grappling, entwined like snakes in a knot upon the floor.
Black Pawl’s hand slid beneath his son’s arm; and with all his strength he drove his thumb in against the tender flesh that covers the ribs at the armpit. There is no more excruciating pain; Red Pawl screamed with it, and fumbled frantically for his father’s wrist.