I do not wonder that the people cheered. Even Belcher could not help joining in the general shout of applause. He was certainly a splendidly built young athlete, and one could not have wished to look upon a finer sight as his white skin, sleek and luminous as a panther's, gleamed in the light of the morning sun, with a beautiful liquid rippling of muscles at every movement. His arms were long and slingy, his shoulders loose and yet powerful, with the downward slant which is a surer index of power than squareness can be. He clasped his hands behind his head, threw them aloft, and swung them backwards, and at every movement some fresh expanse of his smooth, white skin became knobbed and gnarled with muscles, whilst a yell of admiration and delight from the crowd greeted each fresh exhibition. Then, folding his arms once more, he stood like a beautiful statue waiting for his antagonist.
Sir Lothian Hume had been looking impatiently at his watch, and now he shut it with a triumphant snap.
"Time's up!" he cried. "The match is forfeit."
"Time is not up," said Craven.
"I have still five minutes." My uncle looked round with despairing eyes.
"Only three, Tregellis!"
A deep angry murmur was rising from the crowd.
"It's a cross! It's a cross! It's a fake!" was the cry.
"Two minutes, Tregellis!"
"Where's your man, Sir Charles? Where's the man that we have backed?" Flushed faces began to crane over each other, and angry eyes glared up at us.
"One more minute, Tregellis! I am very sorry, but it will be my duty to declare it forfeit against you."
There was a sudden swirl in the crowd, a rush, a shout, and high up in the air there spun an old black hat, floating over the heads of the ring-siders and flickering down within the ropes.
"Saved, by the Lord!" screamed Belcher.
"I rather fancy," said my uncle, calmly, "that this must be my man."
"Too late!" cried Sir Lothian.
"No," answered the referee. "It was still twenty seconds to the hour. The fight will now proceed."
CHAPTER XVII--THE RING-SIDE
Out of the whole of that vast multitude I was one of the very few who had observed whence it was that this black hat, skimming so opportunely over the ropes, had come. I have already remarked that when we looked around us there had been a single gig travelling very rapidly upon the southern road. My uncle's eyes had rested upon it, but his attention had been drawn away by the discussion between Sir Lothian Hume and the referee upon the question of time. For my own part, I had been so struck by the furious manner in which these belated travellers were approaching, that I had continued to watch them with all sorts of vague hopes within me, which I did not dare to put into words for fear of adding to my uncle's disappointments. I had just made out that the gig contained a man and a woman, when suddenly I saw it swerve off the road, and come with a galloping horse and bounding wheels right across the moor, crashing through the gorse bushes, and sinking down to the hubs in the heather and bracken. As the driver pulled up his foam-spattered horse, he threw the reins to his companion, sprang from his seat, butted furiously into the crowd, and then an instant afterwards up went the hat which told of his challenge and defiance.
"There is no hurry now, I presume, Craven," said my uncle, as coolly as if this sudden effect had been carefully devised by him.
"Now that your man has his hat in the ring you can take as much time as you like, Sir Charles."
"Your friend has certainly cut it rather fine, nephew."
"It is not Jim, sir," I whispered. "It is some one else."
My uncle's eyebrows betrayed his astonishment.
"Some one else!" he ejaculated.
"And a good man too!" roared Belcher, slapping his thigh with a crack like a pistol-shot. "Why, blow my dickey if it ain't old Jack Harrison himself!"
Looking down at the crowd, we had seen the head and shoulders of a powerful and strenuous man moving slowly forward, and leaving behind him a long V-shaped ripple upon its surface like the wake of a swimming dog.