They made a magnificent contrast.  Guy, apparently quite composed, but the lower part of his face set stern and pitiless; an evil light in his eyes, showing how all the gladiator in his nature was roused; his left hand swaying level with his hip; all the weight of his body resting on the right foot; his lofty head thrown back haughtily; his guard low.  The professional, three inches shorter than his adversary, but a rare model of brute strength; his arms and neck, where the short jersey left them exposed, clear-skinned and white as a woman’s, through the perfection of his training; his hair cropped close round a low, retreating forehead; his thick lips parted in a savage grin, meant to represent a smile of confidence.  So they stood there—­fitting champions of the races that have been antagonistic for four thousand years—­Patrician and Proletarian.

Suddenly there was a commotion at one corner of the ring, and I saw a small, bullet-headed man, with a voice like a fractious child, striving frantically to force his way through.  “Don’t let ’em fight!” he screamed:  “it’s robbery, I tell you.  There’s hundreds of pounds on him for Thursday next, I’m his trainer; and I daren’t show him with a scratch on him.”

A great roar of laughter answered his entreaties, and twenty arms thrust the little man back; but his interesting charge seemed to ponder and hesitate, when a drawling nasal voice spoke from the opposite corner:  “Ah! you’re right; take him away; don’t show his white feather till you’re druv to it.”  That turned the wavering scale.  The Big ’un ground his teeth with blasphemy, and set-to.

I need not go through the minutiae of the fight; it was all one way.  The professional did his best, and took his punishment like a glutton; but he could do nothing against the long reach of his adversary, who stopped and countered as coolly as if he had only the gloves on.

It was the beginning of the sixth round; our champion bore only one mark, showing where a tremendous right-hander had almost come home—­a cut on his lower lip, whence the bright Norman blood was flowing freely.  I will not attempt to describe the hideous changes that ten minutes had wrought in his opponent’s countenance; but I think I was not the only spectator who felt a thrill of fear mingling with disgust as the Big ’un made his despairing effort, and fought his way in to the terrible “half-arm rally.”  In truth, there was something unearthly and awful in the sight of the maimed and mangled Colossus; his huge breast heaving with wrath and pain; his one unblinded eye glaring unutterably; his crushed lips churning the crimson foam.  It was the last rash of the Cordovan bull goaded to madness by picador and chulo; but Guy’s fatal left met him, straight, unyielding as the blade of the matador; twice he reeled back wellnigh stunned; the third time he dropped his head cleverly, so as to avoid the blow, and grappled.  For some seconds the two were locked together, undistinguishably; then we saw Guy’s right hand, never used till then save as a guard, rise and fall twice with a dull, smashing sound, which was bad to hear; then the huge form of the prize-fighter was whirled up unresistingly over his antagonist’s hip, and fell crashing down at his feet, a heap of blind, senseless, bleeding humanity.