'You shall not fight!' she cried. 'You coward! You brute!'

At this juncture Kyley, who had been away replenishing the rum-barrel, entered the tent. He took in the situation at a glance.

'Look after Aurora, Ben!' ordered Mrs. Kyley, and Kyley calmly took the struggling girl in his arms, and handed her bodily over the counter into the washer-woman's gentle care.

Mike was promptly at his mate's back. 'Stave him off, Jim,' he said. 'Use your straight left, and if he gets in throw him. He's a dirty in-fighter.' Mike had boxed a good deal with Done lately, and did not tremble for his friend.

Kyley came forward again. It was no part of his duty to prevent an honourable settlement of a quarrel between man and man, and very far from his inclination.

'If yer meanin' fight,' he said, it's got to be fair, square, an' in order. First man that fouls 'll hear from me. Are you ready?'

The men had formed themselves into ranks along the sides and the end of the tent, leaving a clear s.p.a.ce about eighteen feet square. Jim threw aside his shirt, and stood erect and composed. The flannel he wore was sleeveless, and his uncommon length of arm excited the attention of the cognoscenti, and if there was a miner on Diamond Gully who did not know the points of a fighter, he was ashamed to admit it. Done had done most of the windla.s.s work since coming to the field, and his forearm was corrugated with muscle, while the flexors responded to movements like b.a.l.l.s of iron starting under the brown skin. His shoulders were broad and set well back, his poise buoyant, and his air of absolute confidence gave a dubious tone to the words of the quidnuncs who were allowing Quigley three minutes to whip him out of all recognition. Done looked slight and small before his big opponent, but Pete's bigness was due largely to surplus material, and Pete had been anything but a temperate man of late.

Jim recollected this in calculating his chances and determining his methods.

'Time!' cried Kyley.

Done took his ground easily, with his left arm well up, and his right in for defence, a style so unusual at that date as to provide a little derision amongst the onlookers. Mike, standing with his arms outspread and his shoulders to the crowd, keeping the ring, smiled complacently.

Pete, confident in his height, weight, and strength, was determined to make a short, hot fight of it, and went straight at Jim, both hands up, and launched his right for the young man's face with terrific force. This must have been a decisive blow had Jim's face remained there to receive it, but Done ducked neatly, and the next moment his left was shot into Quigley's cheek, sending the big man staggering, and raising a purple wheal under the eye almost instantly. Pete's composure forsook him at the first set back, and uttering a furious oath he rushed in again, swinging both fists; but that shooting left hand met him full in the mouth, and balked him again, his own sledge-hammer blows falling short of his opponent. He pushed in recklessly, punching right and left, but Jim dodged smartly, slipped under his arm, and jumped to the other end of the ring. Quigley swung round and dashed at him, and once more Done's hard left shot into his face, while the heavy blow of the giant was neatly parried, and again Jim bewildered his man by ducking and slipping from him.

'Why don't you stand up and fight him like a Briton?' cried one of the supporters of the big digger.

'He's fightin' fair, an' as long as he fights fair he'll fight as he dom well pleases!' said Ben Kyley, who had const.i.tuted himself referee.

Already Quigley was bleeding freely and panting from his exertions, while Done, who betrayed no excitement and conserved his energies with miserly care, was no more disturbed than if he had been taking a hand at cards.

He faced his foe as before, presenting as little as possible of his body for a target, and met Pete's rush this time with an adroit side movement and a heavy lifting blow in the body that made Quigley gasp, and robbed him of the little bit of sense that had remained. He went blundering at Jim, lashing out with left and right. There was a rapid exchange, and using his guard arm in offence for the first time, Jim sent in a swinging blow that crashed on Pete's chin; and Pete dropped as if his legs had suddenly broken under him, and lay in a grotesque att.i.tude, his cheek pressed to the earthen floor, while the a.s.sembled miners sent up yells of excitement that presently settled into a babel of criticism.

Quigley made an effort to rise, but collapsed, and was lifted into his corner, and freely sprayed and towelled by his seconds. Jim sat unmoved, while Mike and an aristocratic digger, known as the Prodigal, fanned him with the towels Mrs. Kyley had thoughtfully provided.

Quigley came up again at the call. He was still blinking and a little dazed, but far from being beaten, and the first round had taught him a lesson. He advanced more warily, displaying some little respect for his enemy's darting left, but Jim's tactics puzzled and disgusted him. The young man was as nimble as a cat, and no matter how Pete pushed him, he always broke ground and slipped away when it seemed that his towering opponent had him at his mercy.

'Why don't you fight, blast yer!' stuttered Pete, swinging on the runaway for the third time in two minutes.

'Yes, stand up to it. This ain't a dancing lesson!' his second growled.

Jim's answer was a quick feint and a hard drive on the nose with the left, following up quickly with the right on Quigley's ear. Both blows sank in deeply, and Jim eluded Pete's rush, jumped out of his reach, and, coming at him from the side, punched him heavily in the neck, whereat Mike and his friends clamoured joyously. Quigley rushed at Jim, spitting oaths, but he was a better fighter than he appeared to be, and was prepared for the other's swift, cutting left hand by this, and, ducking, he landed both fists on Jim's body. Jim countered on the ear and neck, there was a fierce rally that set the crowd jumping and shouting madly, and Jim slid out and skipped away, then got back at Pete before he had quite realized what had happened with a powerful blow over the kidneys.

Pete's blood was up; he set his teeth, and went at Done with hungry pa.s.sion. The young man's style of fighting was new to most of the onlookers, and few of them appreciated it. What they liked was to see combatants stand up to each other, giving punch for punch, a system in which the strong brute had all the advantage. Adroitness in avoiding punishment was not regarded with favour; but, in spite of the derisive cries of Quigley's backers, Jim kept strictly to his methods.

'Shut up, you!' cried Kyley. 'The lad's fightin' his own battle, an'

fightin' it well. He could wipe the floor with a bunch of you.'

Breathing heavily, and looking extremely ugly under his blood and bruises, Pete followed Jim round, watching for an opportunity to rush in and grip him. He felt that it was only necessary for him to get the smaller man in his arms to settle the contest once and for all; but Jim fought him warily, sparring, ducking, and dodging, cutting Pete again and again with left-hand punches, or clipping him neatly with a swinging right when an opening offered. Taking advantage of an instant when Done was driven against the line of men, Quigley bore in, shaking his head from a blow that might have felled a bullock, and, clasping Jim round the waist, deliberately carried him into the centre of the ring, making nothing of the short-arm punches that cut like a hammer. Three times he tried to dash Done to the ground, but the latter was lithe as a serpent, and his limbs writhed themselves about Quigley and clung tenaciously. The crowd was shouting the two men's names, and exchanging cries of triumph and abuse. Suddenly an arm shot across Pete's breast, an elbow was driven into his throat, the two men wheeled, and the big one was sprung from his feet and sent down, with a stunning shock. The yelling ceased suddenly, every eye was upon Quigley.

'My G.o.d! he's killed!' said one awed voice.

They dragged Pete to his corner, and Jim submitted himself to the attentions of his seconds. All the pa.s.sion had gone out of his heart before the first round was finished: there remained no emotion but the l.u.s.t of conquest. Aurora, who had watched the fight lying across the counter under the washer-woman's restraining arm, her dark eyes shining, her face ablaze, beat the boards with her knuckles, and cried out incessantly, a prey to a fever of excitement that quivered in all her flesh.

'Time!' cried Ben Kyley, and the men came to the scratch for the third round, Pete badly shaken, but game and still eager.

'Stand in an' fight me, an' I'll belt the hide off you!' he said savagely.

Jim laughed mockingly, and pushed his face forward, inviting the other to lead, and when Pete lunged at it he ducked, and got right and left on to his enemy's ribs, slipping, away under Pete's arm when he endeavoured to return the blows. For a time Jim simply led the big man a dance round the ring, landing a stinging blow now and then, to add to Pete's discomfiture; but the latter got him cornered at last, and the thud, thud, thud of the blows stirred the crowd to enthusiasm once more. Pete got after Jim smartly when the latter broke ground, and landed his best blow, a heavy right swing on the temple that sent Done down, and left him confused for a few seconds. Quigley's friends shouted themselves hoa.r.s.e as Mike helped his mate to the chair.

'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 windla.s.s, 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.

Jim was sitting on the foot of his bunk reading. Mike had gone up the creek on a prospecting expedition. Presently a magpie in a dead tree at a little distance burst into full-throated melody. Done dropped his book to listen. That clarion of jubilation always delighted him. It seemed to him that if the young Australian republic men were talking of ever came into being its anthem must ring with the wild, free notes of its bravest singing-bird.

'So the bold hayro was not kilt intoirely?' Aurora was smiling in at him, her eyes full of sunshine, her cheeks suffused with more than their wonted colour. 'Are ye axin' me in? Thank ye, kind sir.' She slipped into the tent, and, placing a hand upon each shoulder, examined him critically, while he smiled back into her face, and wondered why she brought with her suggestions of a bounteous rose-garden. 'Ah, Jimmy, I thought I'd hardly know ye!

'"Where are your eyes that looked so mild?

Hurroo! Hurroo!

Where are your eyes that looked so mild Hurroo! Hurroo!

Where are your eyes that looked so mild, When my poor heart you first beguiled?"

She sang no more, but sank upon his knee, and her arms were about his neck. Her accent was mischievious, but there was the fire of rubies in her eyes.

'They're both there fast enough,' laughed Jim. 'An' niver a black one among them. The big fellow didn't spoil your picture, then? Ah, Jim, it was fine! fine! fine! It maddened me with delight to see you beating him.

You--you sprig of a fighting devil, I love you for it!'

Jim's heart took fire at hers. He strained her to him, and his lips sank upon her handsome, eager mouth in a long kiss that transported him.

'Dearest, you have kissed my heart,' she whispered. 'You fought him for the love of me, didn't you?'

Only twice in his life had he kissed a woman, and as if greedy from long fasting he kissed her now, lips, cheeks, eyes, and neck. His lips searched the deep corners of her mouth.

'But you don't say you love me, ma bouchal!' Aurora murmured, and her arms tightened about his neck.

'You are beautiful! You are beautiful!' he said fiercely.

'But you don't say you love me!'