“You are older,” Sard said, “that is true, but you are fresh. I have already fought twice this night.”
“I had not heard that,” Sagrado answered. “I heard that you had been beaten: did you refer to that?”
“Yes,” Sard said.
“That was not in my mind,” Sagrado said, “when I wondered at the fitness of the match. The issue is not between Master and servant, but between the civilised world and its Destroyer. You are disgusting to me, but not important enough. You are not master of your destiny. You are a part of the scum of life, which is active for another (though without religion) and worried for another, though without purpose. And your talk is such as one would expect: it is prejudice based on ignorance, just like your press. Your sports, your muscle, your fair play, all these catchwords which you repeat when people ask you for intelligence, degrade men. Shall we say that they are the barrel-organs played loudly that men may not know of the degradations done to manhood?”
“You may say what you like,” Sard said, “the sewer of your mind is probably better fluent than stagnant.”
“I see what you are,” Sagrado answered, “the prop of it all, the sergeant, the second mate, the curé, the school-master, the petty officer.” He strode up to Sard and boxed his ears. “Pah!” he said, “you have no foundations, you paltry thing. You talk about manhood, probably, and reckon yourself a man; not a gentleman, of course, for that not even you would pretend, even at sea, but a man, no doubt. You, a preacher and a slave; who cannot know what manhood is. I will tell you what it is: it is the attainment of power and the use of power. Old as I am, I will show you. You shall stand in the wrestle with me. Esclavos!”
At his call the group of seven Indians entered. Sard saw them in the light now; seven wild animals, with a light in their eyes from the desire of blood: they had faces without mark of mirth or pity. At a sign from Sagrado they cast loose Sard’s chains. Sagrado cast off his scarlet robe and stretched his arms.
“You are free,” Sagrado said. “Come, then, to the test. Why do you not come?”
Sard hesitated for a second, thinking that one of the Indians would surely knife him when he moved. He felt that he had reached his end, and that this was how he was to die, shut up here with wild beasts in the presence of his love. He glanced at Margarita, and stood with dropped hands, letting the blood run into his numbed arms again. He meant to hit Sagrado before he died.
“The preacher hesitates,” Sagrado said.