And so it went on till the fourteenth round--Fitzsimmons bashed about, staggered sometimes, out-boxed and out-generalled in every round, but still strong and agile and ferocious. Corbett, weighed down with infinite weariness and unmarked. It was a hard test for him, as it is for any man in like case. His very arms were an intolerable weight, he was sick with weariness. And--he was unhurt and was faced by a virtually beaten man. And now he dragged his feet and his pace was gone from him. He could not see a moment ahead. He could only do the simple things. He could lead with his left and did so. And Fitzsimmons dodged the blow and they fell into a clinch, and the Cornishman grinned wickedly over his shoulder. His moment had come now and he was quite sure about it. They broke away, and Fitzsimmons came in again, sliding his feet along the boards with an almost reptilian movement. With his left foot foremost he sent a hard left to Corbett’s mark: then whipped his feet over, left behind right, almost in one movement, and shot his right up from below to the jaw. The American’s face was seen to go gray. His great body seemed slowly to crumble and he went down. As the referee counted the seconds he struggled to rise. But he was paralysed--out. When at last he did manage by an heroic effort to find his feet again he lost his head and wildly threw himself at his antagonist. Seconds and officials leapt between the men and held him away. Great strength and an abnormal capacity for endurance had beaten one of the finest boxers who ever claimed the Championship of the World. CHAPTER IV JAMES J. JEFFERIES AND ROBERT FITZSIMMONS James J. Jefferies was an enormous fellow who for many years held the World’s Championship. He stood 6 feet 1½ inches, and his weight was generally in the neighbourhood of fifteen stone. He was born in 1879, and before he was twenty he had at least eight conquests to his name, and had fought drawn battles of twenty rounds each with such men as Gus Ruhlin and Joe Choynski. And having knocked out the majority of his opponents in a very few rounds, and being a man of phenomenal strength and hitting power, it naturally followed that he should challenge Bob Fitzsimmons for the World’s Championship. This he did, and the fight took place at Coney Island Athletic Club, near New York, on June 9th, 1899. If it wanted a sledge-hammer to hurt Fitzsimmons, the hammer of Thor was needed for Jefferies. There has seldom, if ever, been a man who could take a harder blow, whether on the “mark” or the jaw, without turning a hair. He was not a scientific boxer of the first order, but he was no mere windmill, and he knew enough not to fight “raggedly.” He was, however, slow.