Well, I ain't seen many free-for-alls to equal that 'un! The circus war-whoop of "Hey, Rube!" mingled with the blood-thirsty yells of the customers. The Iron-villians outnumbered us, but we give 'em a bellyful. In about three seconds the ring was tore to pieces and the storm of battle surged into the tent-wall, which collapsed under the impact.
Knives was flashing and a few guns barking, and all I wonder is that somebody wasn't kilt. The athaletic tent was literally ripped plumb to ribbons, and the battle surged out onto the grounds and raged around the other tents and booths.
Then a wild scream went up: "Fire!" And over everything was cast a lurid glow. Somehow or other the main top hadst caught in the melee--or maybe some fool set it on fire. A strong wind was fanning the flames, which mounted higher each second. In a instant the fight was abandoned. Everything was in a tumult, men running and yelling, children squalling, women screaming. The circus-people was running and hauling the cages and wagons outa the animal tent, which was just catching. The critters was bellering and howling in a most hair-raising way, and I remembered Mike in Oswald's cage. I started for there on the run, when there riz a most fearful scream above all the noise: "The animals are loose!"
EVERYBODY HOLLERED AND tore their hair and ran, and here come the elephants like a avalanche! They crashed over wagons and cages and booths, trumpeting like Judgment Day, and thundered on into the night. How they got loose nobody never exactly knowed. Anything can happen in a fire. But, in stampeding, they'd bumped into and busted open some more cages, letting loose the critters inside.
And here _they_ come roaring--Sultan, the tiger, and Amir, the leopard, killers both of 'em. A crowd of screaming children rushed by me, and right after them come that striped devil, Sultan, his eyes blazing. I grabbed up a heavy tent-stake and leaped betweenst him and the kids. He roared and leaped with his talons spread wide, and I braced my feet and met him in mid-air with a desperate smash that had every ounce of my beef behind it. The impact nearly knocked me offa my feet, and the stake splintered in my hand, but Sultan rolled to the ground with a shattered skull.
And almost simultaneously a terrible cry from the people made me wheel just in time to see Amir racing toward me like a black shadder with balls of fire for eyes. And, just as I turned, he soared from the ground straight at my throat. I didn't have time to do nothing. He crashed full on my broad breast, and his claws ripped my hide as the impact dashed me to the earth. And at the same instant I felt another shock which knocked him clear of me.
I scrambled up to see a squat white form tearing and worrying at the limp body of the big cat. Again Mike had saved my worthless life. When Amir hit me, he hit Amir and broke his neck with one crunch of his iron jaws. He'd squoze out between the bars of Oswald's cage and come looking for me.
He lolled out his tongue, grinning, and vibrated his stump tail, and all to once I heered my name called in a familiar voice. Looking around, I seen a battered figger crawl out from under the ruins of a band-wagon, and, in the lurid light of the burning tents, I reckernized him.
"Jerusha!" I said. "The Old Man! What you doin' under that wagon?"
"I crawled under there to keep from bein' trampled by the mob," he said, working his legs to see if they was broke. "And it was a good idee, too, till a elephant run over the wagon. By gad, if I ever get safe to sea once more I'll never brave the perils of the land again, I wanta tell ya!"
"Did you see me lick Bill Cairn?" I asked.
"I ain't see nothin' but a passel of luneyticks," he snapped. "I arrived just as the free-for-all was ragin'. I don't mind a rough-house, but when they drags in a fire and a stampede of jungle-critters, I'm ready to weigh anchor! And you!" he added, accusingly. "A merry chase you've led me, you big sea-lion! I've come clean from Frisco, and it looked for a while like I wouldn't never find this blame circus."
"What you wanta find it for?" I growled, the thought of my wrongs renewing itself.
"Steve," said the Old Man, "I done you a injustice! It was the cabin-boy which put that pole-cat in my bunk--I found it out after he jumped ship. Steve, as champeen of the old _Sea Girl,_ I asks you--let bygones be gone-byes! Steve, me and the crew has need of your mallet-like fists. At Seattle, a few weeks ago, I shipped on a fiend in human form by the name of Monagan, which immediately set hisself up as the bully of the fo'c'le. I had to put in Frisco because of shortage of hands. Even now, Mate O'Donnell, Mushy Hanson and Jack Lynch lies groanin' in their bunks from his man-handlin', and he has likewise licked Bill O'Brien, Maxie Heimer and Sven Larsen. He has threatened to hang me on my own bow-sprit by my whiskers. I dast not fire him, for fear of my life. Steve!" the Old Man's voice trembled with emotion, "I asks you--forgive and forget! Come back to the _Sea Girl_ and demonstrate the eternal brotherhood of man by knockin' the devil outa this demon Monagan before he destroys us all! Show the monster who's the real champeen of the craft!"
"Well," I said, "I got some money comin' to me from Larney--but let it go. He'll need it repairin' his show. Monagan, of Seattle--bah! I hammered him into a pulp in Tony Vitello's poolroom three years ago, and I can do it again. Calls hisself champeen of the _Sea Girl,_ huh? Well, when I kick his battered carcass onto the wharf, he'll know who's champeen of the craft. They never was, and they ain't now, and they never will be but one champeen of her, and that's Steve Costigan, A.B. Let's go! I wasn't never cut out for no peaceful landlubber's existence, nohow."
THE END
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Contents
CUPID VS. POLLUX
By Robert E. Howard
As I am coming up the steps of the fraternity house, I meet Tarantula Soons, a soph with an ingrown disposition and a goggle eye.
"You're lookin' for Spike, I take it?" said he, and upon me admittin' the fact, he gives me a curious look and remarks that Spike is in his room.
I go up, and all the way up the stairs, I hear somebody chanting a love song in a voice that is incitement to justifiable homicide. Strange as it seems, this atrocity is emanating from Spike's room, and as I enter, I see Spike himself, seated on a divan, and singing somethin' about lovers' moons and soft, red lips. His eyes are turned soulfully toward the ceiling and he is putting great feeling in the outrageous bellow which he imagines is the height on melody. To say I am surprized is putting it mildly and as Spike turns and says "Steve, ain't love wonderful?" you could have knocked me over with a pile-driver. Besides standing six feet and seven inches and scaling upwards of 270 pounds, Spike has a map that makes Firpo look like and ad for the fashionable man, and is neitherto about as sentimental as a rhinoceros.
"Yeh? And who is he?" I ask sarcastically, but he only sighs amorously and quotes poetry. At that I fizz over.
"So that's why you ain't to the gym training!" I yawp. "You big chunka nothin', the tournament for the intercollegiate boxin' title comes off tomorrow and here you are, you overgrown walrus, sentimentaliin' around like a three year old yearlin' calf."
"G'wan," says he, tossin' a haymakin' right to my jaw in an absentminded manner, "I can put over any them palukas without no trainin'."
"Yes," I sneers, climbin' to my wobbling' feet, "and when you stack up against Monk Gallranan you won't need any trainin'. That's a cinch."
"Boxin'," says the infatuated boob, "is degradin'. I bet she thinks so. I don't know whether I'll even enter the tourneyment or not."
"Hey!" I yells. "After all the work I've done getting' you in shape. You figurin' on throwin' the college down?"
"Aw, go take a run around the block," says Spike, drawing back his lip in an ugly manner.
"G'wan, you boneheaded elephant!" says I, drivin' my left to the wrist in his solar plexus and the battle was on. Anyway, at the conclusion, I yelled up to him from the foot of the stairs "where the college will be too small for you."
His sole answer was to slam the door so hard that he shook the house but the next day when I was lookin' for a substitute for the heavyweight entries, the big yam appears, with a smug and self satisfied look on his map.
"I've decided to fight, Steve," he says grandly. "She will have a ringside seat and women adore physical strength and power allied to manly beauty."
"All right," says I, "get into your ring togs. Your bout is the main event of the day and will come last."
This managing a college boxing a show is no cinch. If things go wrong, the manager gets the blame and if things don't, the fighters get the hand. I remember once I even substituted for a welterweight entry who didn't show up. Just to give the fans a run for their money, I lowered my guard the third round and invited my antagonist to hit me--he did--they were four hours bringing me to and the fact that it was discovered he had a horseshoe concealed inn his glove didn't increase my regard for the game. They've got the horseshoe in the museum now, but it isn't much to look at as a horseshoe, being bent all out of shape where it came in contact with my jaw.
But to get back to the tournament. The college Spike and I represented had indifferent fortune in the first bouts; our featherweight entry won the decision on points and our flyweight tied with a fellow from St. Janice's. As usual, heavyweights being scarce, Spike and Monk Gallranan from Burke's University were the only entries. This gorilla is nearly as tall and heavy as Spike, and didn't make the football team on account of his habit of breaking the arms and legs of the team in practice scrimmage. He is even more prehistoric looking than Spike, so you can imagine what those two cavemen looked like when they squared off together. Spike was jubilant, however, at the chance of distinguishing himself in an athletic way, he having always been too lazy to come out for football and the like. And this girl was there in a seat on the front row. The bout didn't last long so I don't know a better way than to give it round by round. What those two saps didn't know about the finer points of boxin' would fill several encyclopedias, but I'd had a second rate for giving Spike some secret instructions on infightin', and I expected him to win by close range work, infightin' bein' a lost art to the average amateur.
Round 1
Spike missed a left for the head and Monk sent a left to the body. Spike put a right to the face and got three left jabs to the nose in return. They traded rights to the body, and Monk staggered Spike with a sizzlin' left to the wind. Monk missed with a right and they clinched. Spike nailed Monk with a straight right to the jaw at the break. Monk whipped a left to the head and a right to the body and Spike rocked him back on his heels with a straight left to the face.
Round 2
Monk missed a right but slammed a left to the jaw. They clinched and Spike roughed in close. Monk staggered Spike on the break with a right to the jaw. Monk drove Spike across the ring with lefts and rights to head and body. Spike covered up, then kicked through with a right uppercut to the jaw that nearly tore Monk's head off. Monk clinched and Spike punished him with short straight rights to the body. Just at the gong Spike staggered Monk with a left hook to the jaw.
Round 3
Monk blocked Spike's left lead and uppercut him three times to the jaw. Spike swung wild and Monk staggered him with a straight right to the jaw. Another straight right started him bleeding at the lips. Spike came out of it with a fierce rally and drove Monk to the ropes with a series of short left hooks to the wind and head. Monk launched an attack of his own and battered Spike to the middle of the ring where they stood toe to toe, trading smashes to head and body. Monk started a fierce rush and a straight left for the jaw. Spike ducked, let the punch slide over his shoulder, and crossed his right to Monk's jaw, and Monk hit the mat. Just as the referee reached "Nine" the gong sounded.
Monk's seconds worked over him but he was still groggy as he came out for the fourth round. I shouted for Spike to finish him quick, but be careful.
Spike stepped up, warily; they sparred for a second, then Spike stepped in and sank his left to the wrist in Monk's solar plexus, following up with a right to the button that would have knocked down a house. Monk hit the mat and lay still.
Then Spike, the boob, turns his back on his fallen foeman and walks over to the ropes smilin' and bowin'. He opens his mouth to say somethin' to his girl-and Monk, who has risen meanwhile, beating the count, lifts his right from the floor and places it squarely beneath Spike's sagging jaw. The referee could have counted a million.
But afterwards Spike says to me, sitting on the ring floor, still in his ring togs, he says, "Steve, girls is a lotta hokum. I'm offa 'em," he says.
Says I, "Then if you've found that out, it's worth the soakin' you got," I says.
THE END
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Contents
DARK SHANGHAI
By Robert E. Howard
THE FIRST MAN I MET, when I stepped offa my ship onto the wharfs of Shanghai, was Bill McGlory of the Dutchman, and I should of took this as a bad omen because that gorilla can get a man into more jams than a Chinese puzzle. He says: "Well, Steve, what do we do for entertainment--beat up some cops or start a free-for-all in a saloon?"
I says: "Them amusements is low. The first thing I am goin' to do is to go and sock Ace Barlow on the nose. When I was in port six months ago somebody drugged my grog and lifted my wad, and I since found out it was him."
"Good," said Bill. "I don't like Ace neither and I'll go along and see it's well done."
So we went down to the Three Dragons Saloon and Ace come out from behind the bar grinning like a crocodile, and stuck out his hand and says: "Well, well, if it ain't Steve Costigan and Bill McGlory! Glad to see you, Costigan."
"And I'm glad to see you, you double-crossin' polecat," I says, and socked him on the nose with a peach of a right. He crashed into the bar so hard he shook the walls and a demijohn fell off a shelf onto his head and knocked him stiff, and I thought Bill McGlory would bust laughing.
Big Bess, Ace's girl, give a howl like a steamboat whistle.
"You vilyun!" she squalled. "You've killed Ace. Get out of here, you murderin' son of a skunk!" I don't know what kind of knife it was she flashed, but me and Bill left anyway. We wandered around on the waterfront most of the day and just about forgot about Ace, when all of a sudden he hove in view again, most unexpectedly. We was bucking a roulette wheel in Yin Song's Temple of Chance, and naturally was losing everything we had, including our shirts, when somebody tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and it was Ace. I drawed back my right mauler but he said: "Nix, you numb-skull--I wanta talk business with you."
His nose was skinned and both his eyes was black, which made him look very funny, and I said: "I bet you went and blowed your nose--you shouldn't never do that after bein' socked."
"I ain't here to discuss my appearance," he said annoyedly. "Come on out where we can talk without bein' overheard."
"Foller you out into the alley?" I asked. "How many thugs you got out there with blackjacks?"
At this moment Bill lost his last dime and turned around and seen Ace and he said: "Wasn't one bust on the snoot enough?"
"Listen, you mugs," said Ace, waving his arms around like he does when excited, "here I got a scheme for makin' us all a lot of dough and you boneheads stand around makin' smart cracks."
"You're goin' to fix it so we make dough, hey?" I snorted. "I may be dumb, Ace Barlow, but I ain't that dumb. You ain't no pal of our'n."
"No, I ain't!" he howled. "I despises you! I wisht you was both in Davy Jones's locker! But I never lets sentiment interfere with business, and you two saps are the only men in Shanghai which has got guts enough for the job I got in mind."
I LOOKED AT BILL AND Bill looked at me, and Bill says: "Ace, I trusts you like I trusts a rattlesnake--but lead on. Them was the honestest words I ever heard you utter."
Ace motioned us to foller him, and he led us out of the Temple of Chance into the back of his grog-shop, which wasn't very far away. When we had set down and he had poured us some licker, taking some hisself, to show us it was on the level, he said: "Did you mutts ever hear of a man by the name of John Bain?"
"Naw," I said, but Bill scowled: "Seems like I have--naw--I can't place the name
--"
"Well," said Ace, "he's a eccentric milyunaire, and he's here in Shanghai. He's got a kid sister, Catherine, which he's very fond of--"
"I see the point," I snapped, getting up and sticking the bottle of licker in my hip pocket. "That's out, we don't kidnap no dame for you. C'mon, Bill."
"That's a dirty insult!" hollered Ace. "You insinyouatin' I'd stoop so low as to kidnap a white woman?"
"It wouldn't be stoopin' for you," sneered Bill. "It would be a step upwards."
"Set down, Costigan," said Ace, "and put back that bottle, les'n you got money to pay for it.... Boys, you got me all wrong. The gal's already been kidnapped, and Bain's just about nuts."
"Why don't he go to the police?" I says.
"He has," said Ace, "but when could the police find a gal the Chineeses has stole? They'd did their best but they ain't found nothin'. Now listen--this is where you fellers come in. I know where the gal is!"
"Yeah?" we said, interested, but only half believing him.
"I guess likely I'm the only white man in Shanghai what does," he said. "Now I ask you--are you thugs ready to take a chance?"
"On what?" we said.
"On the three-thousand-dollar reward John Bain is offerin' for the return of his sister," said Ace. "Now listen--I know a certain big Chinee had her kidnapped outa her 'rickshaw out at the edge of the city one evenin'. He's been keepin' her prisoner in his house, waitin' a chance to send her up-country to some bandit friends of his'n; then they'll be in position to twist a big ransome outa John Bain, see? But he ain't had a chance to slip her through yet. She's still in his house. But if I was to tell the police, they'd raid the place and get the reward theirselves. So all you boys got to do is go get her and we split the reward three ways."
"Yeah," said Bill bitterly, "and git our throats cut while doin' it. What you goin' to do?"
The Robert E. Howard Omnibus: 97 Collected Stories Page 85