Ben, the hope both of his colour and his creed, came slouching into the ring with his back turned to the coloured men’s seats. He was a pale, very evil-looking man, with oblique eyes that were downcast: nothing short of an execution would have brought a smile on his mouth. He slipped off his shabby clothes and appeared in boxing tights. With his clothes on, he looked mean, but when stripped to fight, he looked dangerous. His arms and shoulders were knotted with muscles: he had a fine chest and magnificent pectoral muscles. When he had been gloved, he stood up to shake himself down: a more villainous looking ruffian never entered a ring.
“Will Ben be at Mr. K.’s party?” Sumecta asked.
“He will stir the beef-stoo,” Mr. Wiskey said.
Captain Cary took his seat beside Sard.
“You are just in time, sir,” Sard said. “What do you think of the Christian champion?”
“He’s like a man I saw hanged once at Hong Kong.”
“He’s got a fine chest, sir.”
“He’s well ribbed up, but what’s inside? If we have to meet at night, may it be moonlight and may I be first. I shall speak to my agents for giving me tickets for such a place. Now that I am here, I will stay, but I count it a degrading exhibition.” He settled himself into his seat, sucked his cigar and stared at Ben.
“The very twin-brother of the half-caste I saw hanged,” he growled. “He was one of those women-killers that go about cutting women up.” He stared again, with dislike of the entertainment mixed with determination to see it through, now that he was there.
“I’m not sure,” he added, “that he did not cut up the women and sell them as dogs’-meat. If he did, it was sheer cannibalism, since they eat dogs there, in some of the quarters. Seven women, altogether, he cut up.” He lapsed into silence, gazing over Ben’s head into that other scene in his memory of the long past.