Against that rushing bulk, enraged almost to madness, the ingenuity of
his training alone saved him from immediate extinction. How many times
he struck in the 120 seconds following his blow to Brokaw's mouth he
could never have told. He was red with Brokaw's blood. His face was warm
with it. His hands were as if painted, so often did they reach with
right and left to Brokaw's gory visage. It was like striking at a
monstrous thing without the sense of hurt, a fiend that had no brain
that blows could sicken, a body that was not a body but an enormity that
had strangely taken human form. Brokaw had struck him once--only
once--in those two minutes, but blows were not what he feared now. He
was beating himself to pieces, literally beating himself to pieces as a
ship might have hammered itself against a reef, and fighting with every
breath to keep himself out of the fatal clinch. His efforts were costing
him more than they were costing his antagonist. Twice he had reached his
jaw, twice Brokaw's head had rocked back 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.
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