And now Hamlet, pray to the gods of your forefathers, if indeed you know who any of them were! Gather to your aid every principle of courage and fortitude you have ever collected, and, better than they, summon to yourself all the tricks and delicacies of warfare that during your short life you have gained by your experience, for indeed to-day you will need them all! Think not of the meal that only an hour ago you have, in the event, most unwisely eaten, pray that your enemy also may have been consuming food; remember that you are fighting for the weak and the undertrodden, for the defenceless and humble-hearted, and better still than that, you are fighting for yourself because you have been insulted and the honour of your very nondescript family called in question!
The other dogs recognized at once that this was no ordinary contest, and it was difficult for them to control their excitement. This they showed with little snappy barks and quiverings of the body, but they realized that too much noise would summon humans on to the scene and stop the fight. Of them all Bobby was the most deeply concerned. Bleeding though he was in one ear, he jumped from foot to foot, snivelling with terror and desire, yapping hysterically to encourage his friend and hero, watching every movement with an interest so active that he almost died of unnatural repression.
To Hamlet, after the first moment of contact, impressions were confused. It was, unfortunately, the first important fight of his life, and he had not, alas, very much experience to guide him. But somewhere in his mixed and misty past there had been a bulldog ancestor, and his main feeling from the beginning to the end was that he must catch on with his teeth somewhere and then hold and never let go again. This principle at first he found difficult to follow. Tufts of white hair disgustingly choked him, his teeth slipped on the bare places, and it seemed strangely difficult to stand on his own feet. The poodle pursued a policy of snap, retreat, and come again. He was always on the stir, catching Hamlet’s ear, wrenching it, then slipping away and suddenly seizing a hind leg. He was a master of this art, and it seemed to him that his victory was going to be very easy. First he had one of his enemy’s ears, then the other, now a foot, now the hair of his head, now one of his eyes. . . . His danger was, as he knew, that he was not in good condition, being over-fed by his master the colonel, and loving a soft and lazy life. He recognized that he had been in a far better state two years before when he had fought the St. Bernard.
But poor Hamlet’s case was soon very bad indeed. He was out of breath and panting; the world was swinging round him, the grass seeming to meet the sky, and the audience of dogs to float in mid-air. All his attacks missed; he could no longer see; blood was flowing from one eye and one ear; he suddenly realized that the poodle meant to kill and it did not seem at all impossible but that he should achieve that. The love of life was strong upon him. Behind his fighting there was his dear master and his love for him, the world with its hunts and smells and soft slumbers and delicious food, the place where he slept, the rooms of the house where he lived, the lights and the darks, the mists and the flashing stars—all these things ranged through his sub-conscious mind, only consciously forming behind his determination not to die and, in any case, to hold on to the last, if only, yes, if only he could find something on to which he might hold.
The poodle’s teeth were terribly sharp, and Hamlet seemed to be bitten in a thousand places. Worst of all, something had happened to one of his hind-legs so that it trembled under him, and he was afraid lest soon he should not be able to stand. Once down, he knew that it would be all over with him. His throat was dry, his head a burning fire, his heart a recording hammer, and the world was now, in very truth, reeling round and round like a flying star. He knew that Mephisto was now certain of victory; he could feel the hot breath of that hated triumph upon his face. Worst of all there was creeping upon him a terrible lassitude, so that he felt as though nothing mattered if only he might lay him down and sleep. Sleep . . . sleep. . . . His teeth snapped feebly. His body was one vast pain. . . . Now he was falling. . . . His legs were trembling. He was done, finished, beaten.
At that last moment he heard, as though from an infinite distance, Bobby’s encouraging bark.
“Go on! Go on!” the bark cried. “You’re not finished yet. He’s done too. One more effort and you’ll bring it off.”
He made one more effort, something colossal, worthy of all the heroes, bracing the whole of his body together, beating down his weakness, urging all the flame and fire of his spirit. He launched out with his body, snapped with his teeth, and at last, at last they fastened upon something, upon something wiry and skinny, but also soft and yielding.
If this time his teeth had slipped it would indeed have been the end, but they held. They held, they held, they held—and it was the poodle’s tail that they were holding.
He felt Mephisto’s body swing round—so weak was he that he swung round with it. His teeth clenched, clenched and clenched. Mephisto screamed, a curious, undoglike, almost human scream. Hamlet’s teeth clenched and clenched and clenched; tighter and tighter they held. They met. Something was bitten through.