Quigley made an effort to rise, but collapsed, and was lifted into his corner, and freely sprayed and towelled by his seconds. Jim sat unmoved, while Mike and an aristocratic digger, known as the Prodigal, fanned him with the towels Mrs. Kyley had thoughtfully provided.
Quigley came up again at the call. He was still blinking and a little dazed, but far from being beaten, and the first round had taught him a lesson. He advanced more warily, displaying some little respect for his enemy's darting left, but Jim's tactics puzzled and disgusted him. The young man was as nimble as a cat, and no matter how Pete pushed him, he always broke ground and slipped away when it seemed that his towering opponent had him at his mercy.
'Why don't you fight, blast yer!' stuttered Pete, swinging on the runaway for the third time in two minutes.
'Yes, stand up to it. This ain't a dancing lesson!' his second growled.
Jim's answer was a quick feint and a hard drive on the nose with the left, following up quickly with the right on Quigley's ear. Both blows sank in deeply, and Jim eluded Pete's rush, jumped out of his reach, and, coming at him from the side, punched him heavily in the neck, whereat Mike and his friends clamoured joyously. Quigley rushed at Jim, spitting oaths, but he was a better fighter than he appeared to be, and was prepared for the other's swift, cutting left hand by this, and, ducking, he landed both fists on Jim's body. Jim countered on the ear and neck, there was a fierce rally that set the crowd jumping and shouting madly, and Jim slid out and skipped away, then got back at Pete before he had quite realized what had happened with a powerful blow over the kidneys.
Pete's blood was up; he set his teeth, and went at Done with hungry passion. The young man's style of fighting was new to most of the onlookers, and few of them appreciated it. What they liked was to see combatants stand up to each other, giving punch for punch, a system in which the strong brute had all the advantage. Adroitness in avoiding punishment was not regarded with favour; but, in spite of the derisive cries of Quigley's backers, Jim kept strictly to his methods.
'Shut up, you!' cried Kyley. 'The lad's fightin' his own battle, an' fightin' it well. He could wipe the floor with a bunch of you.'
Breathing heavily, and looking extremely ugly under his blood and bruises, Pete followed Jim round, watching for an opportunity to rush in and grip him. He felt that it was only necessary for him to get the smaller man in his arms to settle the contest once and for all; but Jim fought him warily, sparring, ducking, and dodging, cutting Pete again and again with left-hand punches, or clipping him neatly with a swinging right when an opening offered. Taking advantage of an instant when Done was driven against the line of men, Quigley bore in, shaking his head from a blow that might have felled a bullock, and, clasping Jim round the waist, deliberately carried him into the centre of the ring, making nothing of the short-arm punches that cut like a hammer. Three times he tried to dash Done to the ground, but the latter was lithe as a serpent, and his limbs writhed themselves about Quigley and clung tenaciously. The crowd was shouting the two men's names, and exchanging cries of triumph and abuse. Suddenly an arm shot across Pete's breast, an elbow was driven into his throat, the two men wheeled, and the big one was sprung from his feet and sent down, with a stunning shock. The yelling ceased suddenly, every eye was upon Quigley.
'My God! he's killed!' said one awed voice.
They dragged Pete to his corner, and Jim submitted himself to the attentions of his seconds. All the passion had gone out of his heart before the first round was finished: there remained no emotion but the lust of conquest. Aurora, who had watched the fight lying across the counter under the washer-woman's restraining arm, her dark eyes shining, her face ablaze, beat the boards with her knuckles, and cried out incessantly, a prey to a fever of excitement that quivered in all her flesh.