There were no blows at first. Striking out from the shoulder was not in vogue then. They grappled, and each did his best to throw his antagonist, the intention being to get the other down, and then to pummel him until he was unable to fight back.
So they dug up the soft green turf with their feet; they rocked this way and that; they swayed up and down; they stumbled over roots and against trees; and sometimes Diego would go down on a knee and squirm up again, and sometimes Juan would go down on a knee and squirm up again.
Their breath came pantingly and through shut teeth, and their eyes glared anger and hatred, and they looked and acted altogether more like wild beasts than like human creatures.
Then, suddenly, they tore apart from each other and stood staring fiercely into each other’s eyes. Then Diego jumped forward and struck Juan over the eye and cried “Hah!” with joy of what he had done. And Juan gasped:
“It’s nothing. There! that’s for you!” and he struck out, too.
However, he missed, and Diego struck him again; this time on the mouth, so that presently a red stain came on his lips, which made Diego wild with triumph, and made Juan wild with rage. Then they grappled again, and, though both were trembling with exhaustion and excitement, they hurtled about the little glade more madly than before, till Diego caught his heel on the projecting root of a tree and was thrown backward.
Juan accelerated his fall with a cry of triumph that was very much like the strangled scream of a wild animal. Diego was stunned a little, and for a moment could not defend himself against the savage blows that rained on his face, each blow being accompanied by a cry that seemed to mean, “It is my turn now! it is my turn now!”
But after a while Juan grew tired—too tired, at any rate, to keep up the stinging blows—and he held Diego pinned to the ground, his face being thereby brought within a few inches of Diego’s. The latter was in no mood for yielding; though he knew he was at the mercy of Juan, and could be punished more as soon as the strength of the latter returned. But his own was coming back now, and he would make a struggle as soon as Juan changed his position to strike again. At any rate, he would never ask for mercy.
In the meantime the breath of each was hot on the face of the other, and their eyes, almost blinded with rage, seemed, nevertheless, to shoot out sparks of fire. Diego made a sudden effort to throw off Juan. Juan gave him a sudden blow in the face and caught him again so that he could not move.
“Have you had enough?” asked Juan, who, even at that moment of fury, would have cared more for the submission of Diego than for anything else. It would have been more disgraceful to Diego.