"That one is for trying to get Stromberg to file a link." Bill ducked a lunging blow without raising his guard. "And now your ear, Moncrossen; I won't knock it off, but it will never be pretty again."
Another long swing landed with a glancing twist that split the ear in half. "That is for the Creed item—and this one is for the river."
The boss's head snapped backward to the impact of a smashing blow; again he staggered, and, turning, spat a mouthful of blood which seeped into the ground, leaving upon the surface several brownish, misshapen nuggets.
"God!" breathed a man, and turned away. "It's his teeth!"
The yelling had ceased and men stared white faced. This was not the fighting they were used to; they understood only the quick, frenzied fighting of fury, where men pummel each other in blind rage, fighting close—as tigers fight—gouging and biting one another as they roll upon the ground locked in each other's grip.
The men gazed in awe, with a strange, unspoken terror creeping into their hearts, upon the vicious battering blows, the coldly gleaming eyes and smiling lips of the man who fought, not in any fume of passion, but deliberately, smoothly, placing his terrific blows at will with a cold, deadly accuracy that smashed and tore.
Moncrossen rushed again.
"And now for the other things," Bill continued; "the attacks upon the defenseless girl—the attempted murder from ambush—and the starving of an old woman."
Blow followed blow, until in the crowd men cried out sharply, and those who had watched a hundred fights turned away white lipped.
Moncrossen fought blindly now. His eyes were closed and his face one solid mass of blood. And still the blows fell. Smash! Smash! Smash! It was horrible—those deliberate, tearing blows, and the lips that smiled in cold, savage cruelty.