Coles was first into the ring. He came with a lofty and contented air, looking significantly round the crowded walls. Then he sat down and Rouse came into sight. The bearing of those whose only part was to look on was very proper. There was no hysterical cheering. Each man received a courteous round of applause. Toby Nicholson came to the ropes and told them briefly the object of the match. Once again clapping was the only evidence of their approval. The moments passed. At last it was time. In a breathless silence the two rose to their feet. Justice had turned to them now to hold the scales in a steady hand. They were meeting at last on level terms. No study walls hemmed them in. Their quarrel was to be fought at last fairly to a finish. Staring stolidly one at the other they met, and their right hands touched for a moment in token that the play was fair. Then they slipped suddenly into a ready stance and the fight had begun. Now Rouse began to realise that the things Johnny Winter had told him must be true. That terrible nervousness that had been upon him for the last two hours had passed. Doubt and mistrust in his power to do this thing that the whole school were expecting of him had precipitately vanished, as Johnny had declared they would when once he was in the ring, and in their place had come, not overflowing confidence, but detachment. His mind grew concentrated upon the immediate future in a way that entirely obliterated all that tensely watching crowd from the picture. He was isolated from them. He could not see things from their point of view at all. He only knew that he had been appointed by the school to deal punishment to one whom they had condemned, and the task had so tightened every sinew in his body that he was fretting to begin. It had become impossible to conceive defeat. Coles had come to the end of his innings and was faced with the reckoning of his score against the school. And he had to reckon now not with a miserable novice but with one who understood clearly how to use his fists. Rouse had learned no tricks. He had not even acquired the art of easy movement in the ring, but he knew how to stand and how to hit, and the straight left which was almost the only blow that Johnny had allowed him to rely upon was ready for its work. The moment that Coles’ hands were up Rouse slipped in. Coles waited for him, just as he had waited when they had fought in a study, ready to shoot in his counter the instant Rouse exposed himself. But times had changed. Rouse showed him one quick threatening movement with his right, and as Coles slipped to avoid the blow, there came at him like a piston, very straight from the left shoulder, a closed glove, hard and weighted like a loaded stick, and it thudded against his mouth and jolted back his head.