Others thought the same, for at least a hundred negroes surged down to the ringside yelling “Foul! Foul!” Half-a-dozen of the bloods, in sailor suits, clambered up by the ropes to insult the referee, with dirty words ending in ucho and uelo. The referee seemed not to regard them for a moment: he stalked up and down, looking over their heads. Someone flung a bottle at him as he stalked, it hit him on the side of the head and knocked the rose out of his ear. He changed on the instant to a screaming madman; he picked up the bottle by the neck and beat the bloods off the ropes with it, and then yelled at them in a sort of frenzy of blasphemy till they went back to their seats. He stood glaring down at them till they were quiet, then, with a gesture he resumed his dignity, and told them that as the referee he would stop the bout if they did not behave more like caballeros. “I am the referee and I am Isidor, and no man shall dictate to me nor daunt me. Never had I thought that my fellow-citizens of Las Palomas would try to impose the mob-will upon the individual. On this individual they fail, for I am Isidor . . .”
He broke off his remarks in order to walk across to Ben, to caution him for hitting low: in doing this, it occurred to him that he might seem less partial if he cautioned the Carib, so he walked over and cautioned El Chico also. The time between the rounds had lengthened out to some three minutes with all this, so that Ben was fresh again.
“So,” Don Isidor said, “all is quiet, is it not so? This is Las Palomas, I hope, not Europe with her savagery. It is thus that we deport ourselves, with calm, with the individual, with Isidor.” He gave a grand gesture to the time-keeper; the gong clanged: the second round began.
The gong had scarcely stopped before Ben was in the Carib’s corner on a roving cruise. Like many men, he boxed better for having had his stage fright warmed out of him in the knock and hurry of a first round. He hit rather low still; perhaps with his oblique and downcast eyes he could not do otherwise. He was clumsy but exceedingly strong. The Carib fought him off and made some play upon his face, but lightly as though the bout were a sparring match. Ben’s seconds shouted insults at him; the negroes yelled to him to go in and finish the dirty white dog. He boxed on gracefully, grinning alike at insults and cheers: he was playing with Ben. He drove Ben into a corner and clouted him right and left, Ben kneed him hard in the ribs and drove himself out of the corner; turning sharply, he fouled the Carib with both hands, kneed him in the ribs again and sent his right across as the Carib staggered. He was short with his blow; the Carib slipped aside, recovered, rushed and sent Ben flying through the ropes, off the platform, into his seconds’ arms. The negroes rose and yelled and sang; knives and revolvers came out on to the laps of the whites. The referee counted five very slowly while Ben climbed back into the ring. The Carib rushed: Ben stopped him: got into a clinch with him: refused to break: hung on to him: wore through the round with him hanging on his shoulder, while the negroes sank back into their seats with a moaning croon. Right at the end of the round the men broke: the Carib came in like a flash, Ben rallied to it, there was a hot exchange: then—Time.
Instantly there came yells of protest at the foulness of Ben’s fighting, but the yells this time were from a few, because all saw that it had been the Carib’s round. The referee let the protests pass by, turning his back on the negroes and talking about something else in a loud tone on the other side of the ring. He abused a sweetmeat seller for bringing flies into the arena; when he had finished with him he swaggered to the centre of the ring with a phrase:—“It is well known that I am for the sport, the sport English, the sport native, the sport antique, the sport all the time. I am not for the white, I am not for the coloured, I am for the sport: it is well known. Money speaks all languages, is it not so? The coloured man’s money is as good as the white’s; is it not so? Good, then; money speaks all languages, and I am for all money and all sport.”
This, because he was well known, was received with loud applause by the negroes. He ended by calling for some lemonade, sipping it, and making a joke about there being no little bit of good in it.
“I think we need stay for no more, Mr. Harker,” Captain Cary said. “The white man cannot win, and I do not think it decent to watch the Carib overcome him. Shall we go?”
“Certainly, sir, if you wish.”
They had risen from their seats and had reached the entrance alley close to their seats, when the gong struck and the two men rose for the third round. Both sailors paused where they stood to watch the start of the round. The fighters were now both warmed to their work, they went for each other hot and hot. Ben came out of an exchange with a bloody lip and looking wild; he clinched, hit in the clinch, was told to break, broke, but clinched again immediately. They wrestled round the ring together, then broke, with the look of strain at their nostrils and blood-smears on their ribs. The Carib feinted, then rushed, Ben ducked, and, as Sard saw, trod with all his weight on the Carib’s foot, the Carib tripped, then hit him as he fell, hit him again and fell over him. Ben got up and stood away, but the Carib lay still and was counted out. Sard saw him smile as he lay there.
Sard saw that Mr. Wiskey and Sumecta were standing at his elbow.