“Well, it’s the old stager for me.  Here they come again!  He’s got a pretty style, and he covers his points well, but it isn’t the best looking that wins.”

They were at it again, and I was jumping about upon my bucket in my excitement.  It was evident that Berks meant to finish the battle off-hand, whilst Jim, with two of the most experienced men in England to advise him, was quite aware that his correct tactics were to allow the ruffian to expend his strength and wind in vain.  There was something horrible in the ferocious energy of Berks’s hitting, every blow fetching a grunt from him as he smashed it in, and after each I gazed at Jim, as I have gazed at a stranded vessel upon the Sussex beach when wave after wave has roared over it, fearing each time that I should find it miserably mangled.  But still the lamplight shone upon the lad’s clear, alert face, upon his well-opened eyes and his firm-set mouth, while the blows were taken upon his forearm or allowed, by a quick duck of the head, to whistle over his shoulder.  But Berks was artful as well as violent.  Gradually he worked Jim back into an angle of the ropes from which there was no escape, and then, when he had him fairly penned, he sprang upon him like a tiger.  What happened was so quick that I cannot set its sequence down in words, but I saw Jim make a quick stoop under the swinging arms, and at the same instant I heard a sharp, ringing smack, and there was Jim dancing about in the middle of the ring, and Berks lying upon his side on the floor, with his hand to his eye.

How they roared!  Prize-fighters, Corinthians, Prince, stable-boy, and landlord were all shouting at the top of their lungs.  Old Buckhorse was skipping about on a box beside me, shrieking out criticisms and advice in strange, obsolete ring-jargon, which no one could understand.  His dull eyes were shining, his parchment face was quivering with excitement, and his strange musical call rang out above all the hubbub.  The two men were hurried to their corners, one second sponging them down and the other flapping a towel in front of their face; whilst they, with arms hanging down and legs extended, tried to draw all the air they could into their lungs in the brief space allowed them.

“Where’s your country hawbuck now?” cried Craven, triumphantly.  “Did ever you witness anything more masterly?”

“He’s no Johnny Raw, certainly,” said Sir John, shaking his head.  “What odds are you giving on Berks, Lord Sole?”

“Two to one.”

“I take you twice in hundreds.”

“Here’s Sir John Lade hedging!” cried my uncle, smiling back at us over his shoulder.

“Time!” said Jackson, and the two men sprang forward to the mark again.