But one thing struck everybody present: how was Tom Sayers, superb fighter as he was, to stand up against that giant? Yet he did, and what is more, in my opinion if ever a man won a fight he did. There was a foul claimed in the hurly-burly confusion at the end, but upon that I do not rely. I go by the condition to which his dauntless courage and generalship ended by reducing his enemy. A great deal was said about the number of times that Sayers was knocked down. What happened was this. Quite early in the fight Sayers had drawn first blood from Heenan, when there arose such a shout of triumph as had hardly been heard since the myrmidons cheered at the death of Hector. Heenan then scored by twice knocking Tom down. Those were fair knock-down blows, and great was the exultation of the American party. Shortly afterwards in guarding a tremendous blow with his right arm, Tom received an injury which rendered it useless. It was said that the small bone was broken, but that was afterwards denied. In any case, he was evidently in cruel pain, and the limb began to swell up and was practically paralysed. This was all the more hard upon him, as in fighting he was wont to rely so greatly on his right—his “Doctor” as he used to call it, because “it would finish off his man.” Most men would have given in at once. Not so Tom Sayers. He had lost his best weapon, and he was suffering torture; the great giant was towering in front of him, threatening and terrible; but never for one moment did Tom flinch or falter; his gallant soul forced him to hold on, and having only one arm, he must now fight with his brains. From that time forth, whenever Heenan delivered one of his slashing blows, there was no guardian right with which to parry it, so Tom caught it as a man catches a cricket ball, yielding to it, and thus went down with the blow, smiling and unhurt. It was the only way—I watched it over and over again, and when at each knock-down the Americans wildly shouted victory for Heenan, I felt that they were counting unhatched chickens. All of a sudden there was a crash which rang almost like metal over the field. Tom Sayers, ducking before a deadly blow from his assailant, had dashed in with his left and cut open Heenan’s cheek with an ugly gash which presently swelled and almost closed one eye at once. The American, big man as he was, staggered under it. From that moment I felt that, given fair play, the battle was won, and that, as I can affirm from what I heard around me, was the fear in the American corner.