The Essential G. B. Shaw: Celebrated Plays, Novels, Personal Letters, Essays & Articles. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

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СКАЧАТЬ ring. Again the theme of Cashel’s occupation and the chances of his quitting it ran away with Lydia’s attention. She sat with her eyes fixed on the arena, without seeing the soldiers, swordsmen, or athletes who were busy there; her mind wandered further and further from the place; and the chattering of the people resolved itself into a distant hum and was forgotten.

      Suddenly she saw a dreadful-looking man coming towards her across the arena. His face had the surface and color of blue granite; his protruding jaws and retreating forehead were like those of an orang-outang. She started from her reverie with a shiver, and, recovering her hearing as well as her vision of external things, became conscious of an attempt to applaud this apparition by a few persons below. The man grinned ferociously, placed one hand on a stake of the ring, and vaulted over the ropes. Lydia now remarked that, excepting his hideous head and enormous hands and feet, he was a well-made man, with loins and shoulders that shone in the light, and gave him an air of great strength and activity.

      “Ain’t he a picture?” she heard Mellish exclaim, ecstatically. “There’s condition for you!”

      “Ah!” said Skene, disparagingly. “But ain’t HE the gentleman! Just look at him. It’s like the Prince of Wales walking down Pall Mall.”

      Lydia, hearing this, looked again, and saw Cashel Byron, exactly as she had seen him for the first time in the elm vista at Wiltstoken, approaching the ring with the indifferent air of a man going through some tedious public ceremony.

      “A god coming down to compete with a gladiator,” whispered Lord Worthington, eagerly. “Isn’t it, Miss Carew? Apollo and the satyr! You must admit that our mutual friend is a splendid-looking fellow. If he could go into society like that, by Jove, the women—”

      “Hush,” said Lydia, as if his words were intolerable.

      Cashel did not vault over the ropes. He stepped through them languidly, and, rejecting the proffered assistance of a couple of officious friends, drew on a boxing-glove fastidiously, like an exquisite preparing for a fashionable promenade. Having thus muffled his left hand so as to make it useless for the same service to his right, he dipped his fingers into the other glove, gripped it between his teeth, and dragged it on with the action of a tiger tearing its prey. Lydia shuddered again.

      “Bob Mellish,” said Skene, “I’ll lay you twenty to one he stops that rush that you think so much of. Come: twenty to one!”

      Mellish shook his head. Then the master of the ceremonies, pointing to the men in succession, shouted, “Paradise: a professor. Cashel Byron: a professor. Time!”

      Cashel now looked at Paradise, of whose existence he had not before seemed to be aware. The two men advanced towards the centre of the ring, shook hands at arm’s-length, cast off each other’s grasp suddenly, fell back a step, and began to move warily round one another from left to right like a pair of panthers.

      “I think they might learn manners from the gentlemen, and shake hands cordially,” said Alice, trying to appear unconcerned, but oppressed by a vague dread of Cashel.

      “That’s the traditional manner,” said Lord Worthington. “It is done that way to prevent one from holding the other; pulling him over, and hitting him with the disengaged hand before he could get loose.”

      “What abominable treachery!” exclaimed Lydia.

      “It’s never done, you know,” said Lord Worthington, apologetically. “Only it might be.”

      Lydia turned away from him, and gave all her attention to the boxers. Of the two, Paradise shocked her least. He was evidently nervous and conscious of a screwed-up condition as to his courage; but his sly grin implied a wild sort of goodhumor, and seemed to promise the spectators that he would show them some fun presently. Cashel watched his movements with a relentless vigilance and a sidelong glance in which, to Lydia’s apprehension, there was something infernal.

      Suddenly the eyes of Paradise lit up: he lowered his head, made a rush, balked himself purposely, and darted at Cashel. There was a sound like the pop of a champagne-cork, after which Cashel was seen undisturbed in the middle of the ring, and Paradise, flung against the ropes and trying to grin at his discomfiture, showed his white teeth through a mask of blood.

      “Beautiful!” cried Skene with emotion. “Beautiful! There ain’t but me and my boy in the world can give the upper cut like that! I wish I could see my old missis’s face now! This is nuts to her.”

      “Let us go away,” said Alice.

      “That was a very different blow to any that the gentlemen gave,” said Lydia, without heeding her, to Lord Worthington. “The man is bleeding horribly.”

      “It’s only his nose,” said Lord Worthington. “He’s used to it.”

      Meanwhile Cashel had followed Paradise to the ropes.

      “Now he has him,” chuckled Skene. “My boy’s got him agin the ropes; and he means to keep him there. Let him rush now, if he can. See what it is to have a good judgment.”

      Mellish shook his head again despondently. The remaining minutes of the round were unhappy ones for Paradise. He struck viciously at his opponent’s ribs; but Cashel stepped back just out of his reach, and then returned with extraordinary swiftness and dealt him blows from which, with the ropes behind him, he had no room to retreat, and which he was too slow to stop or avoid. His attempts to reach his enemy’s face were greatly to the disadvantage of his own; for Cashel’s blows were never so tremendous as when he turned his head deftly out of harm’s way, and met his advancing foe with a counter hit. He showed no chivalry and no mercy, and revelled in the hardness of his hitting; his gloves either resounding on Paradise’s face or seeming to go almost through his body. There was little semblance to a contest: to Lydia there was nothing discernible but a cruel assault by an irresistible athlete on a helpless victim. The better sort among the spectators were disgusted by the sight; for, as Paradise bled profusely, and as his blood besmeared the gloves and the gloves besmeared the heads and bodies of both combatants, they were soon stained with it from their waists upward. The managers held a whispered consultation as to whether the sparring exhibition had not better be stopped; but they decided to let it proceed on seeing the African king, who had watched the whole entertainment up to the present without displaying the least interest, now raise his hands and clap them with delight.

      “Billy don’t look half pleased with hisself,” observed Mellish, as the two boxers sat down. “He looks just like he did when he spiked Shepstone.”

      “What does spiking mean?” said Lydia.

      “Treading on a man’s foot with spiked boots,” replied Lord Worthington. “Don’t be alarmed; they have no spikes in their shoes to-day. It is not my fault that they do such things, Miss Carew. Really, you make me feel quite criminal when you look at me in that way.”

      Time was now called; and the pugilists, who had, by dint of sponging, been made somewhat cleaner, rose with mechanical promptitude at the sound, Cashel had hardly advanced two steps when, though his adversary seemed far out of his reach, he struck him on the forehead with such force as to stagger him, and then jumped back laughing. Paradise rushed forward; but Cashel eluded him, and fled round the ring, looking back derisively over his shoulder. Paradise now dropped all pretence of goodhumor. With an expression of reckless ferocity, he dashed at Cashel; endured a startling blow without flinching, and engaged him at close quarters. For a moment the falling of their blows reminded Lydia of the rush of raindrops against a pane in a sudden gust of wind. The next moment Cashel was away; and Paradise, whose blood was again flowing, СКАЧАТЬ