fingers still stiffly clutched the whisky bottle from which the last
glass had been filled. Not another man in the room stirred from his
place. Some sat with their cards raised in the very act of playing.
Some had stopped midway a laugh. One man had been tying a bootlace.
His body did not rise. Only his eyes rolled up to watch.

Dan darted under the outstretched arms of Silent, fairly heaved him up
from the floor and drove him backwards. The big man half stumbled and
half fell, knocking aside two chairs. He rushed back with a shout, but
at sight of the white face with the thin trickle of blood falling from
the lips, and at the sound of that inhuman laughter, he paused again.

Once more Dan was upon him, his hands darting out with motions too
fast for the eye to follow. Jim Silent stepped back a half pace,
shifted his weight, and drove his fist straight at that white face.
How it happened not a man in the room could tell, but the hand did not
strike home. Dan had swerved aside as lightly as a wind-blown feather
and his fist rapped against Silent's ribs with a force that made the
giant grunt.

Some of the horror was gone from his face and in its stead was baffled
rage. He knew the scientific points of boxing, and he applied them.
His eye was quick and sure. His reach was whole inches longer than his
opponent's. His strength was that of two ordinary men. What did it
avail him? He was like an agile athlete in the circus playing tag with
a black panther. He was like a child striking futilely at a wavering
butterfly. Sometimes this white-faced, laughing devil ducked under
his arms. Sometimes a sidestep made his blows miss by the slightest
fraction of an inch.