His enemy was smooth and shiny, but he seemed very strong, and you could
see the muscles of his arms and legs move under his skin. Some one had
marked a circle with chalk, and all the men and women, quite silent now,
made a dark line along the wall. The lamp in the middle of the room was
still swinging a little, and they had forgotten to close the window, so
that the snow, which was falling more lightly now, came in little clouds
with breaths of wind, into the room--and the bells were yet pealing and
could be heard very plainly against the silence.

Then Sam Figgis, who was standing with his legs wide apart, said something
that Peter could not catch, and a little sigh of excitement went up all
round the room. Peter, who was clutching his chair with both hands, and
choking, very painfully, in his throat, knew, although he had no reason for
his knowledge, that the little man with the shining chest meant to kill
Stephen if he could.

The two men moved round the circle very slowly with their fists clenched
and their eyes watching every movement--then, suddenly, they closed. At
once Peter saw that the little man was very clever, cleverer than Stephen.
He moved with amazing quickness. Stephen's blows came like sledge-hammers,
and sometimes they fell with a dull heavy sound on the other man's face and
on his chest, but more often they missed altogether. The man seemed to be
everywhere at once, and although the blows that he gave Stephen seemed to
have little effect yet he got past the other's defence again and again.

Then, again, the figures in front of Peter closed in and he saw nothing. He
stood on his chair--no one noticed him now--but he could not see. His face
was very white, and his stockings had fallen down over his boots, but with
every movement he was growing more afraid. He caught an instant's vision
of Stephen's face, and he saw that it was white and that he was breathing