Thirty rounds had been fought in an hour and twenty-five minutes, and the rain was pelting down harder than ever. A thick steam rose from the two fighters, and the ring was a pool of mud. Repeated falls had turned the men brown, with a horrible mottling of crimson blotches. Round after round had ended by Crab Wilson going down, and it was evident, even to my inexperienced eyes, that he was weakening rapidly. He leaned heavily upon the two Jews when they led him to his corner, and he reeled when their support was withdrawn. Yet his science had, through long practice, become an automatic thing with him, so that he stopped and hit with less power, but with as great accuracy as ever. Even now a casual observer might have thought that he had the best of the battle, for the smith was far the more terribly marked, but there was a wild stare in the west-countryman’s eyes, and a strange catch in his breathing, which told us that it is not the most dangerous blow which shows upon the surface. A heavy cross-buttock at the end of the thirty-first round shook the breath from his body, and he came up for the thirty-second with the same jaunty gallantry as ever, but with the dazed expression of a man whose wind has been utterly smashed. “He’s got the roly-polies,” cried Belcher. “You have it your own way now!” “I’ll vight for a week yet,” gasped Wilson. “Damme, I like his style,” cried Sir John Lade. “No shifting, nothing shy, no hugging nor hauling. It’s a shame to let him fight. Take the brave fellow away!” “Take him away! Take him away!” echoed a hundred voices. “I won’t be taken away! Who dares say so?” cried Wilson, who was back, after another fall, upon his second’s knee. “His heart won’t suffer him to cry enough,” said General Fitzpatrick. “As his patron, Sir Lothian, you should direct the sponge to be thrown up.” “You think he can’t win it?” “He is hopelessly beat, sir.” “You don’t know him. He’s a glutton of the first water.” “A gamer man never pulled his shirt off; but the other is too strong for him.” “Well, sir, I believe that he can fight another ten rounds.” He half turned as he spoke, and I saw him throw up his left arm with a singular gesture into the air. “Cut the ropes! Fair play! Wait till the rain stops!” roared a stentorian voice behind me, and I saw that it came from the big man with the bottle-green coat. His cry was a signal, for, like a thunderclap, there came a hundred hoarse voices shouting together: “Fair play for Gloucester! Break the ring! Break the ring!”