‘How goes it, Jim?’ asked Burton anxiously.

‘He’s beaten, but my hat won’t fit me for a day or two,’ answered Done, smiling through the water.

Quigley showed his bad condition very markedly when he came up, and Jim, excepting for a cut chin and a big lump over his temple, appeared none the worse.  Pete maintained his wild policy, rushing the young man about the ring, wasting energy in terrible blows that were rarely within a foot of their object, while Done, who scarcely seemed to be fighting at all, slipped in every now and again and battered Pete’s body, chary of hitting his cut and swollen face.  This was maintained for two rounds more, and three times Quigley went down.  When time was called for the seventh round Jim said decisively: 

‘I’ll fight the man no more!  He’s beaten!’

There was a yell from Quigley’s corner, and Pete rushed Jim, forcing him back among the men.  Again they clinched, but Jim broke away, and Quigley followed, almost blind, and scarcely able to stagger.  Done put him off with the left, and drove in a right-hand blow that took Pete on the point of the chin, sending him to earth, helpless and hopelessly beaten.

‘Jimmy Done’s the winner,’ said Kyley authoritatively, when a measure of quiet was restored, ‘an’ I don’t mind sayin’ I ain’t seen a prettier bit o’ fightin’ this five year.  You’ve got a lot o’ Tom Sayers’s dainty tricks, my lad!’ he added, shaking Done by the hand.

 XI

The miners pressed about the victor, eager to shake hands with him, and invitations to drink were showered upon him.  Aurora clamoured on the out skirts of this crowd, trying to fight her way through, still half delirious with excitement and exultation, calling Jim’s name.  Her rapture was uncouth, half savage; she had many of the instincts of the primitive woman.  But Mike dragged Done’s shirt over his head and led his mate away.  Burton prepared a hot tub for Jim that night, and after nine hours’ sleep the hero awakened on Sunday morning with only a bruise or two, a lump on his forehead, and a stiff and battered feeling about the ribs, to remind him of his fight with Quigley.

It was a pleasant morning, the winter was already well advanced; but only an improved water-supply, an occasional wetting at the windlass, and the need of a rug on the bunk, marked the change of season, so far as Jim could see.  There was no place for verdure on Diamond Gully; the whole field turned upside down, littered with the debris of the mines, washed with yellow slurry, and strewn in places with white boulders and the gravel tailings sluiced clean by the gold-seekers.  The creek, recently a limpid rivulet, was now a sluggish, muddy stream, winding about its tumbled bed; but a bright sky was over all, and a benignant sun smiled upon the gully, scintillating among the tailings and burnishing the muddy stream to silver.  The tents looked white and clean, and the smoke from the camp-fires rose straight and high in the peaceful atmosphere.  A strange quiet was upon the lead; it needed only the chastened clanging of a church-bell to complete the suggestion of an English Sabbath.