“He's quick as chained lightning,” acknowledged the other grudgingly. “But I'll get him. He can't keep that up; he'll be winded in half a minute.”
Orde sat down on a roll of mat. His smile had quite vanished, and he seemed to be awaiting eagerly the beginning of the next round.
“Time!” called Gerald for the third.
Orde immediately sprang at his adversary, repeating the headlong rush with which the previous round had ended. Murphy blocked, ducked, and kept away, occasionally delivering a jolt as opportunity offered, awaiting the time when Orde's weariness would leave him at the other's mercy. That moment did not come. The young man hammered away tirelessly, insistently, delivering a hurricane of his two-handed blows, pressing relentlessly in as Murphy shifted and gave ground, his head up, his eyes steady, oblivious to the return hammering the now desperate handler opposed to him. Two minutes passed without perceptible slackening in this terrific pace. The gallery was in an uproar, and some of the members were piling down the stairs to the floor. Perspiration stood out all over Murphy's body. His blows failed of their effect, and some of Orde's were landing. At length, bewildered more by the continuance than the violence of the attack, he dropped his ring tactics and closed in to straight slugging, blow against blow, stand up, give and take.
As he saw his opponent stand, Orde uttered a sound of satisfaction. He dropped slightly his right shoulder behind his next blow. The glove crashed straight as a pile-driver through Murphy's upraised hands to his face, which it met with a smack. The trainer, lifted bodily from the ground, was hurled through the air, to land doubled up against the supports of a parallel bars. There he lay quite still, his palms up, his head sunk forward.
Orde stared at him a moment in astonishment, as though expecting him to arise. When, however, he perceived that Murphy was in reality unconscious, he tore off the gloves and ran forward to kneel by the professional's side.
“I didn't suppose one punch like that would hurt him,” he muttered to the men crowding around. “Especially with the gloves. Do you suppose he's killed?”
But already Murphy's arms were making aimless motions, and a deep breath raised his chest.
“He's just knocked out,” reassured one of the men, examining the prostrate handler with a professional attention. “He'll be as good as ever in five minutes. Here,” he commanded one of the gymnasium rubbers who had appeared, “lend a hand here with some water.”
The clubmen crowded about, all talking at once.