“Well,” I said, “that’s tough, but you’ll just have to lose the bet.”
“I can’t!” he howled.
Bong! went the gong, and I shot outa my corner as Hakon ripped outa his.
“I can’t lose!” the Old Man howled above the crowd. “I bet the Sea Girl!”
“What!” I roared, momentarily forgetting where I was, and half-turning toward the ropes. Bang! Hakon nearly tore my head off with a free- swinging right. Bellering angrily, I come back with a smash to the mush that started the claret, and we went into a slug-fest, flailing free and generous with both hands.
That Dane was tough! Smacks that would of staggered most men didn’t make him wince. He come ploughing in for more. But, just before the gong, I caught him off balance with a blazing left hook that knocked him into the ropes, and the Swedes arose, whooping like lions.
Back on my stool I peered through the ropes. The Old Man was dancing a hornpipe.
“What’s this about bettin’ the Sea Girl?” I demanded.
“When I come to myself a while ago, I found I’d wagered the ship,” he wept, “against Jessup’s lousy tub, the Nigger King, which I find is been condemned by the shippin’ board and wouldn’t clear the bay without goin’ to the bottom. He took a unfair advantage of me! I wasn’t responsible when I made that bet!”
“Don’t pay it,” I growled, “Jessup’s a rat!”
“He showed me a paper I signed while stewed,” he groaned. “It’s a contrack upholdin’ the bet. If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t pay. But if I don’t, he’ll rooin my reputation in every port of the seven seas. He’ll show that contrack and gimme the name of a welsher. You got to lose!”
“Gee whiz!” I said, badgered beyond endurance. “This is a purty mess—”
Bong! went the gong, and I paced out into the ring, all upset and with my mind elsewhere. Hakon swarmed all over me, and drove me into the ropes, where I woke up and beat him off, but, with the Old Man’s howls echoing in my ears, I failed to follow up my advantage, and Hakon come back strong.
The Danes raised the roof as he battered me about the ring, but he wasn’t hurting me none, because I covered up, and again, just before the gong, I snapped outa my crouch and sent him back on his heels with a wicked left hook to the head.
The referee gimme a gloating look, and pointed at his black eye, and I had to grit my teeth to keep from socking him stiff. I set down on my stool and listened gloomily to the shrieks of the Old Man, which was getting more unbearable every minute.
“You got to lose!” he howled. “If Torkilsen don’t win this fight, I’m rooined! If the bet’d been on the level, I’d pay — you know that. But, I been swindled, and now I’m goin’ to get robbed! Lookit the rat over there, wavin’ that devilish paper at me! It’s more’n human flesh and blood can stand! It’s enough to drive a man to drink! You got to lose!”
“But the boys has bet their shirts on me,” I snarled, fit to be tied with worry and bewilderment. “I can’t lay down! I never throwed a fight. I don’t know how—”
“That’s gratitood!” he screamed, busting into tears. “After all I’ve did for you! Little did I know I was warmin’ a serpent in my bosom! The poorhouse is starin’ me in the face, and you—”
“Aw, shut up, you old sea horse!” said Bill. “Steve — I mean Lars — has got enough to contend with without you howlin’ and yellin’ like a maneyack. Them squareheads is gonna get suspicious if you and him keep talkin’ in English. Don’t pay no attention to him, Steve — I mean Lars. Get that Dane!”
Well, the gong sounded, and I went out all tore up in my mind and having just about lost heart in the fight. That’s a most dangerous thing to have happen, especially against a man-killing slugger like Hakon Torkilsen. Before I knowed what was goin’ on, the Swedes rose with a scream of warning and about a million stars bust in my head. I realized faintly that I was on the canvas, and I listened for the count to know how long I had to rest.
I heered a voice droning above the roar of the fans, but it was plumb meaningless to me. I shook my head, and my sight cleared. Jon Yarssen was standing over me, his arm going up and down, but I didn’t understand a word he said! He was counting in Swedish!
Not daring to risk a moment, I heaved up before my head had really quit singing an’ Hakon come storming in like a typhoon to finish me.
But I was mad clean through and had plumb forgot about the Old Man and his fool bet. I met Hakon with a left hook which nearly tore his head off, and the Swedes yelped with joy. I bored in, ripping both hands to the wind and heart, and, in a fast mix-up at close quarters, Hakon went down — more from a slip than a punch. But he was wise and took a count, resting on one knee.
I watched the referee’s arm so as to familiarize myself with the sound of the numerals — but he wasn’t counting in the same langwidge as he had over me! I got it, then; he counted over me in Swedish and over Hakon in Danish. The langwidges is alike in many ways, but different enough to get me all mixed up, which didn’t know a word in either tongue, anyhow. I seen then that I was going to have a enjoyable evening.
Hakon was up at nine — I counted the waves of the referee’s arm — and he come up at me like a house afire. I fought him off half- heartedly, whilst the Swedes shouted with amazement at the change which had come over me since that blazing first round.
Well, I’ve said repeatedly that a man can’t fight his best when he’s got his mind on something else. Here was a nice mess for me to worry about. If I quit, l’d be a yeller dog and despize myself for the rest of my life, and my shipmates would lose their money, and so would all the Swedes which had bet on me and was now yelling and cheering for me just like I was their brother. I couldn’t throw ’em down. Yet if I won, the Old Man would lose his ship, which was all he had and like a daughter to him. It wouldst beggar him and break his heart. And, as a minor thought, whether I won or lost, that scut Yarssen was going to tell the crowd I wasn’t no Swede, and get me mobbed. Every time I looked at him over Hakon’s shoulder in a clinch, Yarssen wouldst touch his black eye meaningly. I was bogged down in gloom, and I wished I could evaporate or something.
Back on my stool, between rounds, the Old Man wept and begged me to lay down, and Bill and my handlers implored me to wake up and kill Torkilsen, and I thought I’d go nuts.
I WENT OUT for the fourth round slowly, and Hakon, evidently thinking I’d lost my fighting heart, if any, come with his usual tigerish rush and biffed me three times in the face without a return.
I dragged him into a grizzly-like clinch which he couldn’t break, and as we rassled and strained, he spat something at me which I couldn’t understand, but I understood the tone of it. He was calling me yellow! Me, Steve Costigan, the terror of the high seas!
With a maddened roar, I jerked away from him and crashed a murderous right to his jaw that nearly floored him. Before he couldst recover his balance, I tore into him like a wild man, forgetting everything except that I was Steve Costigan, the bully of the toughest ship afloat.
Slugging right and left, I rushed him into the ropes, where I pinned him, while the crowd went crazy. He crouched and covered up, taking most of my punches on the gloves and elbows, but I reckoned it looked to the mob like I was beating him to death. All at once, above the roar, I heered the Old Man screaming, “Steve, for cats’ sake, let up! I’ll go on the beach, and it’ll be your fault!”
That unnerved me. I involuntarily dropped my hands and recoiled, and Hakon, with fire in his eyes, lunged outa his crouch like a tiger and crashed his right to my jaw.
Bang! I was on the canvas again, and the referee was droning Swedish numerals over me. Not daring to take a count, and maybe get counted out unknowingly, I staggered up, and Hakon come lashing in. I throwed my arms around him in a grizzly hug, and it took him and the referee both to break my hold.
Hakon drove me staggering into the ropes with a wild-man attack, but I’m always dangerous on the ropes, as many a good man has found out on coming to in
his dressing room. As I felt the rough strands against my back, I caught him with a slung-shot right uppercut which snapped his head right back betwixt his shoulders, and this time it was him which fell into a clinch and hung on.
Looking over his shoulder at that sea of bristling blond heads and yelling faces, I seen various familiar figgers. On one side of the ring — near my corner — the Old Man was dancing around like he was on a red-hot hatch, shedding maudlin tears and pulling his whiskers; and, on the other side, a skinny, shifty-eyed old seaman was whooping with glee and waving a folded paper. Cap’n Gid Jessup, the old cuss! He knowed the Old Man would bet anything when he was drunk — even bet the Sea Girl, as sweet a ship as ever rounded the Horn, against that rotten old hulk of a Nigger King, which wasn’t worth a cent a ton. And, near at hand, the referee, Yarssen, was whispering tenderly in my ear, as he broke our clinch, “Better let Hakon knock you stiff — then you won’t feel so much what the crowd does to you when I tell them who you are!”
Back on my stool again, I put my face on Mike’s neck and refused to listen either to the pleas of the Old Man or to the profane shrieks of Bill O’Brien. By golly, that fight was like a nightmare! I almost hoped Hakon would knock my brains out and end all my troubles.
I went out for the fifth like a man going to his own hanging. Hakon was evidently puzzled. Who wouldn’t of been? Here was a fighter — me — who was performing in spurts, exploding in bursts of ferocious battling just when he appeared nearly out, and sagging half heartedly when he looked like a winner.
He come in, lashed a vicious left to my mid-section, and dashed me to the canvas with a thundering overhand right. Maddened, I arose and dropped him with a wild round-house swing he wasn’t expecting. Again the crowd surged to its feet, and the referee got flustered and started counting over Hakon in what sounded like Swedish.
Hakon bounded up and slugged me into the ropes, offa which I floundered, only to slip in a smear of my own blood on the canvas, and again, to the disgust of the Swedes, I found myself among the resin.
I looked about, heard the Old Man yelling for me to stay down, and saw Old Cap’n Jessup waving his blame-fool contrack. I arose, only half aware of what I was doing, and bang! Hakon caught me on the ear with a hurricane swing, and I sprawled on the floor, half under the ropes.
Goggling dizzily at the crowd from this position, I found myself staring into the distended eyes of Cap’n Gid Jessup, which was standing up, almost touching the ring. Evidently froze at the thought of losing his bet — with me on the canvas — he was standing there gaping, his arm still lifted with the contrack which he’d been waving at the Old Man.
With me, thinking is acting. One swoop of my gloved paw swept that contrack outa his hand. He yawped with suprise and come lunging half through the ropes. I rolled away from him, sticking the contrack in my mouth and chawing as fast as I could. Cap’n Jessup grabbed me by the hair with one hand and tried to jerk the contrack outa my jaws with the other’n, but all he got was a severely bit finger.
At this, he let go of me and begun to scream and yell. “Gimme back that paper, you cannibal! He’s eatin’ my contrack! I’ll sue you — !”
Meanwhile, the dumbfounded referee, overcome with amazement, had stopped counting, and the crowd, not understanding this by-play, was roaring with astonishment. Jessup begun to crawl through the ropes, and Yarssen yelled something and shoved him back with his foot. He started through again, yelling blue murder, and a big Swede, evidently thinking he was trying to attack me, swung once with a fist the size of a caulking mallet, and Cap’n Jessup bit the dust.
I arose with my mouth full of paper, and Hakon promptly banged me on the chin with a right he started from his heels. Ow, Jerusha! Wait’ll somebody hits you on the jaw when you’re chawing something! I thought for a second every tooth in my head was shattered, along with my jaw-bone. But I reeled groggily back into the ropes and begun to swaller hurriedly.
Bang! Hakon whanged me on the ear. “Gulp!” I said. Wham! He socked me in the eye. “Gullup!” I said. Blop! He pasted me in the stummick. “Oof — glup!” I said. Whang! He took me on the side of the head. “Gulp!” I swallered the last of the contrack, and went for that Dane with fire in my eyes.
I banged Hakon with a left that sunk outa sight in his belly, and nearly tore his head off with a paralyzing right before he realized that, instead of being ready for the cleaners, I was stronger’n ever and ra’ring for action.
Nothing loath, he rallied, and we went into a whirlwind of hooks and swings till the world spun like a merry-go-round. Neither of us heered the gong, and our seconds had to drag us apart and lead us to our corners.
“Steve,” the Old Man was jerking at my leg and weeping with gratitude, “I seen it all! That old pole-cat’s got no hold on me now. He can’t prove I ever made that fool bet. You’re a scholar and a gent — one of nature’s own noblemen! You’ve saved the Sea Girl!”
“Let that be a lesson to you,” I said, spitting out a fragment of the contrack along with a mouthful of blood. “Gamblin’ is sinful. Bill, I got a watch in my pants pocket. Get it and bet it that I lay this squarehead within three more rounds.”
And I come out for the sixth like a typhoon. “I’m going to get mobbed by the fans as soon as the fight’s over and Yarssen spills the beans,” I thought, “but I’ll have my fun now.”
For once I’d met a man which was willing and able to stand up and slug it out with me. Hakon was as lithe as a panther and as tough as spring-steel. He was quicker’n me, and hit nearly as hard. We crashed together in the center of the ring, throwing all we had into the storm of battle.
Through a red mist I seen Hakon’s eyes blazing with a unearthly light. He was plumb berserk, like them old Vikings which was his ancestors. And all the Irish fighting madness took hold of me, and we ripped and tore like tigers.
We was the center of a frenzied whirlwind of gloves, ripping smashes to each other’s bodies which you could hear all over the house, and socks to each other’s heads that spattered blood all over the ring. Every blow packed dynamite and had the killer’s lust behind it. It was a test of endurance.
At the gong, we had to be tore apart and dragged to our corners by force, and, at the beginning of the next round, we started in where we’d left off. We reeled in a blinding hurricane of gloves. We slipped in smears of blood, or was knocked to the canvas by each other’s thundering blows.
The crowd was limp and idiotic, drooling wordless screeches. And the referee was bewildered and muddled. He counted over us in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian alike. Then I was on the canvas, and Hakon was staggering on the ropes, gasping, and the befuddled Yarssen was counting over me. And, in the dizzy maze, I recognized the langwidge. He was counting in Spanish!
“You ain’t no Norwegian!” I said, glaring groggily up at him.
“Four!” he said, shifting into English. “ — As much as you’re a Swede! Five! A man’s got to eat. Six! They wouldn’t have given me this job — seven! — if I hadn’t pretended to be a Norwegian. Eight! I’m John Jones, a vaudeville linguist from Frisco. Nine! Keep my secret and I’ll keep yours.”
THE GONG! OUR handlers dragged us off to our corners and worked over us. I looked over at Hakon. I was marked plenty — a split ear, smashed lips, both eyes half closed, nose broken — but them’s my usual adornments. Hakon wasn’t marked up so much in the face — outside of a closed eye and a few gashes — but his body was raw beef from my continuous body hammering. I drawed a deep breath and grinned gargoylishly. With the Old Man and that fake referee offa my mind, I couldst give all my thoughts to the battle.
The gong banged again, and I charged like a enraged bull. Hakon met me as usual, and rocked me with thundering lefts and rights. But I bored in, driving him steadily before me with ripping, bone-shattering hooks to the body and head. I felt him slowing up. The man don’t live which can slug with me!
Like a tiger scenting the kill, I redoubled the fury of my onslaught, and the crowd arose, roarin
g, as they foresaw the end. Nearly on the ropes, Hakon rallied with a dying burst of ferocity, and momentarily had me reeling under a fusillade of desperate swings. But I shook my head doggedly and plowed in under his barrage, ripping my terrible right under his heart again and again, and tearing at his head with mallet-like left hooks.
Flesh and blood couldn’t stand it. Hakon crumpled in a neutral corner under a blasting fire of left and right hooks. He tried to get his legs under him, but a child couldst see he was done.
The referee hesitated, then raised my right glove, and the Swedes and Norwegians came roaring into the ring and swept me offa my feet. A glance showed Hakon’s Danes carrying him to his corner, and I tried to get to him to shake his hand, and tell him he was as brave and fine a fighter as I ever met — which was the truth and nothing else — but my delirious followers hadst boosted both me and Mike on their shoulders and were carrying us toward the dressing-room like a king or something.
A tall form come surging through the crowd, and Mushy Hansen grabbed my gloved hand and yelled, “Boy, you done us proud! I’m sorry the Danes had to lose, but, after a battle like that, I can’t hold no grudge. I couldn’t stay away from the scrap. Hooray for the old Sea Girl, the fightin’est ship on the seven seas!”
And the Swedish captain, which had acted as announcer, barged in front of me and yelled in English, “You may be a Swede, but if you are, you’re the most unusual looking Swede I ever saw. But I don’t give a whoop! I’ve just seen the greatest battle since Gustavus Adolphus licked the Dutch! Skoal, Lars lvarson!”
And all the Swedes and Norwegians thundered, “Skoal, Lars lverson!”
“They want you to make a speech,” said Mushy.
“All right,” I said. “Dis bane happiest moment of my life!”
“Louder,” said Mushy. “They’re makin’ so much noise they can’t understand you, anyhow. Say somethin’ in a foreign langwidge.”
“All right,” I said, and yelled the only foreign words I couldst think of, “Parleyvoo Francais! Vive le Stockholm! Erin go bragh!”
Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four) Page 195