"Have you run out of stolen whiskey again?" interrupted Greer with cool malice.

The whole crew came to hushed attention.

Caradoc seemed to collect himself with a great effort. The blood ebbed from his face, leaving it the color of clay.

"Stolen?" he asked in a contained voice. "Yes, isn't there another medicine case for you to steal?"

"Greer!" cried Madden reproachfully. The American knew it was hunger, heat and nerves that were nagging these two miserable men to quarrel.

"I believe he said I was no gentleman," pronounced Greer sarcastically, "because I didn't know a little French. I say _he's_ a thief."

Caradoc was drawing long breaths through dilated nostrils. "Mr. Greer,"

he said with cold evenness, "it is impossible to obtain swords or pistols on this dock. We will have to fight with our hands. Choose a second!"

Greer nodded shortly. Both men got to their feet and both glanced at Madden.

The American shook his head. "I can't serve for either of you. I'm in command here. I'm impartial."

"Will you oblige me, Mr. Deschaillon?" asked Smith with a set face.

The Gaul arose, saluted, military fashion, with a clicking of heels.

"Eet ees an honor, M'sieu!"

Greer stared around dourly. "Hogan?"

The Irishman leaped to his feet joyfully. "Oi'm wid ye, Misther Greer, and we'll bate th' long face off th' spalpeen, though I hate to hit Frinchy Dashalong, who is a good frind o' mine."

All the men were up now circling about the principals.

"You don't have to do no fightin', 'Ogan," explained Galton, "you simply stand by and 'old up for your man, an' 'elp fan 'im 'twixt rounds."

"Rounds!" exclaimed the disgusted Irishman. "I thought they were choosin' sides for a free-for-all."

Caradoc began methodically stripping to the waist and Greer followed suit. The Englishman presented his watch to Madden with a slight bow.

"If you'll be so kind as to keep time," he suggested, "that's a neutral position. We fight four minutes and rest one."

Madden considered the warlike preparations askance. He wondered if he ought not to stop it. The Englishman might suffer another sunstroke.

However, he took his station at the ringside, and glanced at the watch, which had a coat of arms carved on the inside of its hunting case.

There was a striking contrast between the two fighters. The Englishman was a beautiful taper from his great shoulders to his small aristocratic feet. His muscles were long, graceful and knitted across his arms, chest, and stomach like lace leather. He was built for swift enduring action and could only have sprung from a race of men who had spent their lives in play and luxury.

Farnol Greer, on the other hand, was as heavily moulded as a bulldog.

His arms were short and blocky; his shoulders welted with brawn; his chest was two hairy hills, like a gorilla's, while across his stomach muscles lay ridged like ropes. His waist was thick with pones of sinew bulging over the hips, as one sees in the statue of Discobolus. It was plain that Greer had labored tremendously all his life and that his strength was simply wonderful.

It struck Madden as a strange coincidence that these two extreme types of luxury and labor should meet in this furnace on the Sargasso and fight for the trivial reason that one offended the other's sense of music.

"All ready!" called Leonard.

The two men squared away at each other, Caradoc smiling sarcastically, Greer grim as a gallows. Utter silence fell over the crowd. The fighters crouched, bare fists up, staring at each other over the tips of their guards.

For a moment Smith shifted around his man on his toes. He seemed as light as a cat. Greer stood solid and merely turned on his flat feet.

Suddenly Caradoc's long right whipped out with a crack against the shorter man's forehead. Greer made no sign of having received a blow, although a dull red splotch slowly formed on his frontal. Caradoc led another right, which Greer blocked, then the Englishman bored through with a stinging left to the hairy chest.

"Go afther him! Kill him!" cried Hogan to his principal. "Nixt toime he thries to hit ye, knock off his head for his impidence!"

"Aye, 'it 'im! Don't take nothin' off of 'im!" advised two of the cockneys. Sympathy lay with the smaller man.

Smith continued his tiptoe dance and led a straight right. Instantly his massive enemy ducked, leaped in under his guard, and there came the dull thud of in-fighting; Greer's black head jammed up against Caradoc's chin, his great muscular back bent half double, his tremendous arms working like pistons.

The crew howled at this sharp unexpected attack. Caradoc rescued himself by shoving open palms against the big bulging shoulders, and pushing himself away from this battering ram. Smith bumped into some onlookers, and got behind his guard some ten feet away from Greer. The Englishman's fine-grained stomach was covered with pink welts from his punishment. He had ceased smiling and was watching his man carefully. As a matter of fact, he had expected to dispose of Greer easily--as a gentleman disposes of a clod-hopper. But the heavy-set boy's method of fighting was new and effective. Likewise there seemed to be a certain grim system about it.

"First round is over!" called Madden.

"Phwat a shame!" cried Hogan.

With English love of fair fight, the cockneys divided themselves impartially between the battlers and converted themselves into impromptu rubbers and handlers. There was perhaps not a man in the crowd who liked Caradoc; nevertheless they hustled him to his awning, put him down on a box, procured towels, water, sponges from somewhere, and set up a vigorous fanning and rubbing, all out of a desire to see fair play. At the end of a minute they carried their champions back and set them facing each other like human game cocks.

Farnol dashed in at once, whipping right and left hooks to Smith's sides. Caradoc tore himself away and played for distance, stabbing at Farnol's head at long range. The short youth accepted with indifference punishment that cut cheeks and lips. He made rush after rush, driving Caradoc into the crowd, who immediately shifted back and made room. Time and again he landed terrific short arm jolts over heart and kidneys.

The sweating bodies of the fighters glistened in the roasting sunshine.

Both were bruised, Smith's body, Greer's head and shoulders. Caradoc's mouth felt slimy and he spit at nothing.

The fighting went in spurts, Greer rushing Land Smith dancing away and stabbing. The two gangs of rubbers bawled encouragement to their men.

"Land on 'is nose there, Smith!" shouted Mulcher. "Don't let 'im to ye!

Play away, play away, me boy! Now huppercut 'im! Huppercut 'im, I say!"

On the other side, Galton was shrieking hoarsely, "Bore in, Greer! Bore in, me lad!" and Hogan, "G'wan and mash the spalpeen's ribs! Br-reak his long nick! Cr-rush him! Why don't ye hit him on th' head and lay him out?"

"Time's up!" announced Madden.

During the following rounds, Caradoc stuck to the long range English method of fighting, but over and over Farnol broke through his guard and his short-arm jabs spread a sick numb feeling over Caradoc's sides and chest.

The Briton deliberately worked for Greer's eyes. His first round with the silent man convinced him that he would never be able to stop that massive steel body with a knock-out. On the other hand Greer covered up tightly and lunged like a tiger after Smith's stomach and endurance.

Two or three weeks before, Caradoc could never have withstood that terrific bombardment, but his hard life on the dock, his abstinence from alcohol, and the fact that tobacco had long ago run out, all this had armored his body with hard flesh.

The opening of the twelfth round found both fighters blown, bleeding and filled with a desperate determination to end the contest. They formed a ghastly sight when they were pitted in what proved to be the final clash. Greer's face was chopped and bleeding, while Caradoc's ribs were a mass of bruises, as mottled as a leopard's skin.

To Caradoc, the whole dock seemed unsteady. The sun bored into the back of his head. The men had ceased yelling, and the circle silently swayed back and forth to give the battlers room. The whole scene was hazy and fantastic.

The Englishman put up his hands automatically when he faced his enemy, and the next moment black-haired blocky bull of a fellow charged furiously. Smith tried to stop him with a heavy right hand smash, but his fist glanced off the man's sweaty shoulder. The next moment, Greer's right landed in a fierce solid jolt on Smith's hip bone. A sickening pain went through the Englishman. He sagged away and went down on a knee, hunched forward, trying to protect his face with his gloves. Greer Started another rush, when Madden jumped in, put a hand on his shoulder.

"You can't hit him while he's down!" he shouted in the bull's ear, and then the American began counting: "One, two, three..."

Caradoc rested with his broad chest panting convulsively up and down till the count of eight. Then he sprang backwards away from his enemy.

Curiously enough, Greer did not press his advantage home. The heavy lad came forward but stood away from Caradoc, attempting nothing but left-hand jabs.