They stayed apparently motionless, breathing heavily, save for that laboured sound seeming like wrestlers of bronze.  Slowly Doughty began to feel his balance slipping from him under the full weight of Ishmael upon his chest and stomach; his spine felt as though if it curved a fraction more it would crack.  He could not move his feet for the strong coil of Ishmael’s legs around his, and he knew that in a moment more he must fall backwards with the weight still upon him.  The only joints in which he still had play were his ankles; stiffening them he began to incline forwards.  Slowly the interlocked bodies, like a swaying tower, came up and up, till the watchers caught their breath wondering what would happen to the one who was undermost in the fall if both stayed so unyielding.

But Ishmael, whose brain was working with that clarity only attained when it is responding to trained instinct, almost mechanically relaxed his grip on the other’s spine when he felt the angle coming forward, then, using all his nerve, he waited—­waited till the forward angle, in which he was the underneath, had become acute, till the momentum of the fall had begun.  Then he relaxed his grip on one of Doughty’s legs, at the same time forcing the other outwards with all the strength of his foot and leg.  Doughty had to unstiffen a knee to prevent himself coming taut and prone on the ground, and a hard shove with Ishmael’s elbow, thrown backwards against his shoulder, combined with the leg-play to send him spinning sideways.  The momentum was too great for him to regulate the fall, and he came fairly on both shoulders, while Ishmael, who had been thrown forwards on one knee, picked himself up and stood reeling slightly but unhurt.

The sticklers ran forward to help Doughty to his feet, but he lay motionless, eyes closed.  In his mind, as he lay there, worked the thought that he did not wish either to go on with the fight or to let Ishmael triumph as at an easy victory.  He would frighten him, frighten them all, by making out he was very badly hurt.  His spine, that would do....  Opening his eyes he murmured, “My back ... my back ...” and made as though trying to move.  A terrible pang shot through his spine as he did so.  His next cry was a scream of real pain and fear.  The tears gathered in his eyes with his rage and terror.  He cried, “You’ve done for me; you’ve broken my back!  Oh, my back; curse you, my back!...”

The others were terrified.  For the second time that evening Ishmael was seized by the awful feeling of irrevocableness, of an impossible thing having happened and of it being still more impossible to undo it.

It had become dark with an effect of suddenness to those who had been intent on other things than the progress of the night; and it seemed to Ishmael that the whole world was narrowed to a circle of dim moor, in the midst of it that white thing crying about its back—­always its back....

Carminow, the least perturbed, insisted on raising the sufferer to his feet, and it was found, after much protest on his part, that he could walk slowly with support on either side.  It only remained to get him back to the school somehow and in at the side door to his bed and the ministrations of the matron if not the doctor.