The rest tells more quickly by far.
A raised, roped platform—two lithe bodies—a pavilion of white faces. Not the first round, nor the second, nor the seventh. The intermission which followed it rather, and a crowd grown strangely silent.
Perry Blair went back to his seat at the clang of the bell. Jack English was in his corner, and Hamilton, for he had been unwilling to trust anyone else. And lying back under their hurried, efficient ministrations he looked out upon the banks of faces.
They were tense; it was easy to see that, just as it was easy to sense that theirs was no ordinary tension. And he understood what it meant. Word had seeped from tier to tier, spread like a drop of ink in a glass of water, until it had colored the entire mass. Only a very select few were "in the know" of what that eighth round had been planned to develop, yet they somehow had leavened the whole audience with anticipation, by an indefinite word or two.
"The eighth," they were whispering among themselves. "Watch this now; here's where something happens!"
They had hooted Perry as he entered the ring; saluted him with catcalls and a few out-and-out hisses. He'd wondered then if any other champion had ever been saluted in just that fashion before; he'd tried to smile. He wasn't trying any more.
But Holliday was. Across in his corner Holliday was nodding to his handlers and grinning widely, just as he had grinned all through the fight so far. And so far it had been a mild battle, a showy thing of pretty footwork and flashy boxing. But it hadn't been harmful to either of them. Holliday, it appeared, had been quite content to let it go along that way from round to round, though it was the style of fighting best suited to his opponent. And he had proved himself faster at it, cleverer, than Perry had expected.
Yet it was not Holliday's cleverness, but his bounding, surging strength which compelled his thoughts. Strength like that, which tossed him like a chip in the clinches, was no new thing to him. He'd often been handled that way, with the same ease, by men heavier than himself,—by Jack English, for example. And Holliday was heavier; he knew that he had given away pounds in the weighing in; that there had been crookedness at the scales, but he hadn't tried to prove it. Yet Holliday was stronger even than Jack English, unbelievably stronger. And Perry knew now that he was about to test that strength to the uttermost. Holliday had romped with the roughness of a great puppy; now it was going to be different. It was going to be the destruction-rush of a young bull.
English too felt what was coming, just as he did; just as did the whole quiet house. English wasn't trying hard to hide his anxiety.
"He's strong," he was saying. "Boy, he's strong! Keep away from him—keep away from him all you can. For if he ever backs you into a corner he's going to knock you dead!"