A little man against a big one, and the chances are in favour of the little one.  The cat has the best of it with a dog.  Goliaths are always vanquished by Davids.

A hail of exclamations followed the combatants.

“Bravo, Helmsgail!  Good!  Well done, Highlander!  Now, Phelem!”

And the friends of Helmsgail repeated their benevolent exhortation,—­

“Bung up his peepers!”

Helmsgail did better.  Rapidly bending down and back again, with the undulation of a serpent, he struck Phelem-ghe-Madone in the sternum.  The Colossus staggered.

“Foul blow!” cried Viscount Barnard.

Phelem-ghe-Madone sank down on the knee of his second, saying,—­

“I am beginning to get warm.”

Lord Desertum consulted the umpires, and said,—­

“Five minutes before time is called.”

Phelem-ghe-Madone was becoming weaker.  Kilter wiped the blood from his face and the sweat from his body with a flannel, and placed the neck of a bottle to his mouth.  They had come to the eleventh round.  Phelem, besides the scar on his forehead, had his breast disfigured by blows, his belly swollen, and the fore part of the head scarified.  Helmsgail was untouched.

A kind of tumult arose amongst the gentlemen.

Lord Barnard repeated, “Foul blow.”

“Bets void!” said the Laird of Lamyrbau.

“I claim my stake!” replied Sir Thomas Colpepper.

And the honourable member for the borough of Saint Ives, Sir Bartholomew
Gracedieu, added, “Give me back my five hundred guineas, and I will go. 
Stop the fight.”

Phelem arose, staggering like a drunken man, and said,—­

“Let us go on fighting, on one condition—­that I also shall have the right to give one foul blow.”

They cried “Agreed!” from all parts of the ring.  Helmsgail shrugged his shoulders.  Five minutes elapsed, and they set to again.

The fighting, which was agony to Phelem, was play to Helmsgail.  Such are the triumphs of science.

The little man found means of putting the big one into chancery—­that is to say, Helmsgail suddenly took under his left arm, which was bent like a steel crescent, the huge head of Phelem-ghe-Madone, and held it there under his armpits, the neck bent and twisted, whilst Helmsgail’s right fist fell again and again like a hammer on a nail, only from below and striking upwards, thus smashing his opponent’s face at his ease.  When Phelem, released at length, lifted his head, he had no longer a face.

That which had been a nose, eyes, and a mouth now looked only like a black sponge, soaked in blood.  He spat, and on the ground lay four of his teeth.

Then he fell.  Kilter received him on his knee.

Helmsgail was hardly touched:  he had some insignificant bruises and a scratch on his collar bone.

No one was cold now.  They laid sixteen and a quarter to one on Helmsgail.