Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/326

314 But she retreated from him in an agony of anger and fear.

"You're heartless—you're all alike—all b-b-b-brutes."

Pete's head was rocking with two furious swings from Ben's right—but again the boy had to give way. The mechanic was no quitter, and that whiskey was a fiery juice that had started the dynamo of his powerful frame to wild swift working.

Still she must look on—she could not keep away—so she stood, moaning piteously every once in a while, just on the outside of the circle of men that moved this way and that as the battlers swayed. Between the heads and shoulders of the ring, and the driving blows, she caught a glimpse of his face. It was covered with bruises and blood, like Pete's. Now the moon shone directly on it. She hardly knew those blue eyes, ablaze with a fire that was at once deadly and yet very cold. They sickened as a blow thudded above the heart.

Again his face was hidden in a clinch—all a snarl of straining bodies, rolling heads, heaving chests, and locking legs, and, now and then, short six-inch jabs that looked feeble because of the hindered leverage, yet each of which carried agony.

Why didn't they stop them! She hated that downward blow on the back of Ben's neck. If they must fight, why weren't they forced to fight fair?

They broke from the clinch. What was the matter? The whiskey driven tide of courage had ebbed from the fighter's heart. He stood rocking on his legs, now spread wide apart, a silly grin on his reddened mouth. His jaw hung limply.