corners, they commended me to think of becoming a jelly. Four though
they were, they kept their positions; they left it to me to rush in for a
close; the hinder ones held out of arms' reach so long as I was
disengaged. I had perpetually to shift my front, thinking--Oh, for a
stick! any stout bit of timber! My fists ached, and a repetition of
nasty dull knocks on back and neck, slogging thumps dealt by men getting
to make sure of me, shattered my breathing.

I cried out for a pause, offered to take a couple of them at a time: I
challenged three-the fourth to bide. I was now the dancer: left, right,
and roundabout I had to swing, half-stunned, half-strangled with gorge.
Those terrible blows in the back did the mischief. Sickness threatened
to undermine me. Boxers have breathing-time: I had none. Stiff and
sick, I tried to run; I tottered, I stood to be knocked down, I dropped
like a log-careless of life. But I smelt earth keenly, and the damp
grass and the devil's play of their feet on my chin, chest, and thighs,
revived a fit of wrath enough to set me staggering on my legs again.
They permitted it, for the purpose of battering me further. I passed
from down to up mechanically, and enjoyed the chestful of air given me in
the interval of rising: thought of Germany and my father, and Janet at
her window, complacently; raised a child's voice in my throat for mercy,
quite inaudible, and accepted my punishment. One idea I had was, that I
could not possibly fail as a speaker after this--I wanted but a minute's
grace to fetch breath for an oration, beginning, 'You fools!' for I
guessed that they had fallen upon the wrong man. Not a second was
allowed. Soon the shrewd physical bracing, acting momentarily on my
brain, relaxed; the fitful illumination ceased: all ideas faded out-clung
about my beaten body-fled. The body might have been tossed into its
grave, for aught I knew.