The first bout began: two game little flyweights going at each other in a flurry of blows, but one was outclassed and soon there was blood sprinkling the canvas. Roelf Stander stopped it in the second round and patted the loser on the back.
Well done! No shame in losing. The other bouts followed, all of them spirited, the fighters obviously doing their very best, but apart from a promising middleweight, it was all very rough and unskilled. At last Manfred was the only one on the bench.
All right, FlatusF The senior laced his gloves and told him: 'Let's see what you can do. Manfred slipped the towel off his shoulders and stood up just as Roelf Stander climbed back into the ring from the changing-room end. He now wore the maroon vest and trunks piped with gold that were Varsity colours, and on his feet were expensive boots of glove leather laced high over the ankles. He held up both gloved hands to quieten the whistles and good- natured cheers.
Ladies and Gentlemen. We do not have a match for our last trialist; no other freshman in his weight division. So if you will be kind enough to bear with me, I'm going to take him through his paces. The cheers broke out again, but now there were shouts of Go easy on him, Roelf, and Don't kill the poor beggar! Roelf waved his assurance of mercy at them, concentrating on the section of seats filled with girls from the women's residences, and there were muted squeals and giggles an a tossing of permanently waved coiffures, for Roelf stood six feet, with a square jaw, white teeth and flashing dark eyes.
His hair was thick and wavy and gleaming with Brylcreem, his sideburns dense and curling and his mustache dashing as a cavalier's.
As Manfred reached the front row of seats he could not restrain himself from glancing sideways at Sarah and Uncle Tromp. Sarah was hopping her bottom up and down on her seat, and she pressed her clenched fists to cheeks that were rosy with excitement.
Get him, Manie, she cried. Vat hoM! and beside her Uncle Tromp nodded at him. Fast as a mamba, jong! Brave as a ratel he rumbled so that only Manfred could hear; and Manfred lifted his chin and there was a new lightness in his feet as he ducked through the ropes into the ring.
One of the other seniors had taken over the duty of referee: In this corner at one hundred and eighty-five pounds the captain of Varsity and amateur heavyweight champion of the Cape of Good Hope, Roelf Stander! And in this corner at one hundred and seventy-three pounds a freshman, in deference to the delicate company, he did not use the full honorific, Manfred De La Rey. The timekeeper struck his gong and Roelf came out of his corner dancing lightly, ducking and weaving, smiling thinly over his red leather gloves as they circled each other. just out of striking distance, around they went, and then back the other way, and the smile left Roelf's lips and they tightened into a straight thin line. His light manner evaporated; he had not expected this.
There was no weak place in the guard of the man who faced him; his cropped golden head was lowered on muscled shoulders, and he moved on his feet like a cloud.
He's a fighter! Roelf's anger flared. He lied, he knows what he's doing. He tried once more to command the centre of the ring, but was forced to turn out again as his adversary moved threateningly into his left.
As yet neither of them had thrown a punch, but the cheers of the crowd subsided. They sensed that they were watching something extraordinary; they saw Roelf's casual attitude change, saw deadly intent come into the way he was moving now; and those who knew him well saw the little lines of worry and perturbation at the corners of his mouth and eyes.
Roelf flicked out his left, a testing shot, and the other man did not even deign to duck; he turned it off his glove contemptuously, and Roelf's skin prickled with shock as he sensed the power in that fleeting contact and looked deeply into Manfred's eyes. It was a trick of his, establishing domination by eye contact.
This man's eyes were a strange light colour, like topaz or yellow sapphire, and Roelf remembered the eyes of a calfkilling leopard that his father had caught in a steel spring trap in the hills above the farm homestead. These were the same eyes, and now they altered, they burned with a cold golden light, implacable and inhuman.
It was not fear that clenched Roelf Stander's chest but rather a premonition of terrible danger. This was an animal in the ring with him. He could see the hunger in its eyes, a great killing hunger, and he struck out at it instinctively.
He used his left, his good hand, driving in hard at those pitiless yellow eyes. The blow died in the air and he tried desperately to recover, but his left elbow was raised, his flank was open for perhaps a hundredth part of a second, and something exploded inside of him. He did not see the fist; he did not recognize it as a punch, for he had never been hit like that before. It felt as though it was inside him, bursting through his ribs, tearing out his viscera, imploding his lungs, driving the wind out of his throat in a hissing agony as he was flung backwards.
The ropes caught him in the small of the back and under the shoulderblades and hurled him forward again like a stone from a slingshot. Time seemed to slow down to a trickle; his vision was enhanced, magnified as though there was a drug in his blood, and this time he saw the fist; he had a weird flash of fantasy that it was not flesh and bone but black iron in that glove, and his flesh quailed. But he was powerless to avoid it and this time the shock was even greater, unbelievable, beyond his wildest imaginings. He felt something tear inside him and the bones of his legs melted like hot candlewax.
He wanted to scream at the agony of it, but even in his extremity he choked it off. He wanted to go down, to get down on the canvas before the fist came again, but the ropes held him up and his body seemed to shatter like crystal as the gloved hand crashed into him and the ropes flung him forward.
His hands dropped away from his face and he saw the fist coming yet again. It seemed to balloon before his eyes, filling his vision, but he did not feel it strike.
Roelf was moving into it with all his weight and his skull snapped back in whiplash against the tension of his spinal column and then dropped forward again and he went down on his face like a dead man and lay without a tremor of movement on the white canvas.
It was all over in seconds, the crowd sitting in stunned silence, Manfred still weaving and swaying over the prostrate figure that lay at his feet, his features contorted into a mask of savagery and that strange yellow light glowing in his eyes, not yet human, with the killing sickness still strong upon him.
Then in the crowd a woman screamed and instantly there was consternation and uproar. The men were up on their feet, chairs crashing over backwards, roaring in bewilderment and amazement and jubilation, rushing forward, clambering through the ropes, surrounding Manfred, pounding his back, others on their knees beside the maroon- and-goldclad figure lying deathly still on the canvas, jabbering instructions at one another as they lifted him gingerly, one of them dabbing ineffectually at the blood; all of them stunned and shaken.
The women were pale-faced with shock, some of them still screaming with delicious horror, their eyes bright with excitation which was tinged with sexuality, craning to watch as Roelf Stander was lifted over the ropes and
