In spite of his pasty face and weedy appearance Jem was still the favourite. His arms, never remarkable for muscular development, looked thin and meagre, his whole body poor. But the lion-hearted courage of the man had so firm a hold upon the imagination of his friends that they believed him still invincible. It was easy enough to invent excuses for his defeat by Pearce. Cribb was a shorter man, but fully two stone heavier. He was built on the heroic scale, with huge chest and shoulders and the arms of an inelegant Hercules. To the more dismal of his friends, who warned him of Jem’s speed, he replied, grinning. “You’ll see, he’ll break his hands on my head.” Cribb’s was a very tough nut, and with considerable experience behind him he knew it. The fight began with the usual caution. Then Jem darted in with a couple of spanking blows at his adversary’s face, and almost before Cribb knew where he was, he had jumped away again out of reach. Again Jem did this and yet again. All the stories he had heard of Cribb’s great strength were comfortably balanced by the discovered truth of the stories about his slowness. But the next time Jem leapt in upon his man Cribb was ready with a heavy right-hand counter on the ribs; and then before he could get away Jem found himself whirled off his feet and flung hard upon the ground. In the next round Jem backed away, tempting Cribb to try for another fall, and as the big fellow lumbered after him, Jem stopped abruptly and sent in lightning blows with left and right, a bang under the chin and again and again on the face and nose, so that the blood ran fast. Then like the vainglorious fool that he was, he closed with Cribb, and exerting all his strength, flung him on the ground.