For the crowd who stood watching it was a glorious moment. Once again Rouse had achieved the seemingly impossible. Coles stood there swaying in defeat and no man could rightly tell his thoughts, but at last, when he saw Rouse moving to hit him again, he leant forward and struck out with left and right as he came. One blow landed, but it failed to stop Rouse, and he came on slowly, relentlessly. His glove swung from the shoulder and landed against the other head with a thud. Coles began to fall. He made one effort to hit back. As he righted himself he exposed his chin, and Rouse let go a blow that carried every atom of his strength. This time Coles just threw out his hands, and dropped in a limp heap at his feet.
Rouse turned to his comer with a sigh of untold satisfaction. He had only one fear, and that was that Coles might recover in time to come up for another round. He wanted to have turned the tables on Coles with real effect. Coles had beaten him in one round.
For a moment he was in doubt. Then Toby finished counting and made a quick sign with his hand.
Coles’ second came into the ring and picked him up.
Rouse had won. Still there was no applause. He looked once towards Terence, but he gave no sign of real gladness. His feelings were part and parcel of the feelings of the entire school. A traitor had met with his deserts. There was nothing to clap about.
And then quite suddenly he realised his mistake. They had merely been waiting for Coles to be carried away. Now they had turned to him, and thunder began to roll from every side towards him. It grew and grew until the windows were rattling in their frames and the rafters of the gym. were trembling with concussion. Louder and louder it swelled. Wherever he looked hands were beating the air. He tried to make his way to the dressing-room. He was seized by strong arms and hoisted up. He tried to quell them. It was no good. The pent-up excitement of the last term’s end was too much for their control. Yesterday’s captain had become to-day’s. What could they do but cheer?
Across the playing fields there came a little man clad in a sombre suit and wearing upon his head a soft felt hat of great respectability. As he came he looked from side to side as if in doubt as to which road he ought to take, and so when he came within sight of the school gymnasium he stopped. Next moment a noise like the crashing to earth of some gigantic edifice shattered his very ear-drums, and he stood swaying for a moment, shaken from head to foot. At last he turned towards the building from which that vast explosion had appeared to come, and as his senses gradually reassumed their balance he realised that the thunderous echo of it was continuing. He began to walk on, his head turned in astonishment as he went, and as the noise grew and grew he stopped again, his blue eyes wide with wonder.
Then from the doorway of the gym. there came a stream of running youngsters, who turned in the open and waited for those behind to form a vast half-circle. Next he saw Toby Nicholson thrust out into the open by the weight of the mob behind him, and at last there came a kaleidoscopic mass of humanity tumbling out from the doors in a tidal wave, bearing upon its crest the boy that he had taught to box.
Then he began to understand, and so he slowly smiled.