ck on his shoulders--and then he
was there again, closing in on him, grinning, dripping red to the soles
of his feet, unconquerable. Was there no fairness out there beyond the
bars of the cage? Were they all like the man he was fighting--devils? An
intermission--only half a minute. Enough to give him a chance. The slow,
invincible beast he was hammering almost had him as his thoughts
wandered. He only half fended the sledge-like blow that came straight
for his face. He ducked, swung up his guard like lightning, and was
saved from death by a miracle. That blow would have crushed in his
face--killed him. He knew it. Brokaw's huge fist landed against the side
of his head and grazed off like a bullet that had struck the slanting
surface of a rock. Yet the force of it was sufficient to send him
crashing against the bars--and _down_.

In that moment he thanked God for Brokaw's slowness. He had a clear
recollection afterward of almost having spoken the words as he lay dazed
and helpless for an infinitesimal space of time. He expected Brokaw to
end it there. But Brokaw stood mopping the blood from his face, as if
partly blinded by it, while from beyond the cage there came a swiftly
growing rumble of voices. He heard a scream. It was the scream--the
agonized cry--of the Girl, that brought him to his feet while Brokaw was
still wiping the hot flow from his dripping jaw. It was that cry that
cleared his brain, that called out to him in its despair that he _must_
win, that all was lost for her as well as for himself if he was
vanquished--for more positively than at any other time during the fight
he felt now that defeat would mean death. It had come to him definitely
in the savage outcry of joy when he was down. There was to be no mercy.
He had read the ominous decree. And Brokaw....

He was like a madman as he came toward him again. There was no longer
the leer on his face. There was in his battered and swollen countenance
but one emotion. Blood and hurt could not hide it. It blazed like fires
in his half-closed eyes. It was the desire to kill. The passion which
quenches itself in the taking of life, and every fibre in David's brain
rose to meet it. He knew that it was no longer a matter of blows on his
part--it was like the David of old facing Goliath with his bare hands.
Curiously the thought of Goliath came to him in these flashing moments.
Here, too, there must be trickery, something unexpected, a deadly
stratagem, and his br