Meanwhile, Cashel stood motionless, watching with unrelenting contempt the movements of his adversary, who rolled up his discolored shirtsleeves amid encouraging cries of “Go it, Teddy,” “Give it ‘im, Ted,” and other more precise suggestions. But Teddy’s spirit was chilled; he advanced with a presentiment that he was courting destruction. He dared not rush on his foe, whose eye seemed to discern his impotence. When at last he ventured to strike, the blow fell short, as Cashel evidently knew it would; for he did not stir. There was a laugh and a murmur of impatience in the crowd.
“Are you waiting for the copper to come and separate you?” shouted the butcher. “Come out of your corner and get to work, can’t you?”
This reminder that the police might balk him of his prey seemed to move Cashel. He took a step forward. The excitement of the crowd rose to a climax; and a little man near Lydia cut a frenzied caper and screamed, “Go it, Cashel Byron.”
At these words Teddy was terrorstricken. He made no attempt to disguise his condition. “It ain’t fair,” he exclaimed, retreating as far as the crowd would permit him. “I give in. Cut it, master; you’re too clever for me.” But his comrades, with a pitiless jeer, pushed him towards Cashel, who advanced remorselessly. Teddy dropped on both knees. “Wot can a man say more than that he’s had enough?” he pleaded. “Be a Englishman, master; and don’t hit a man when he’s down.”
“Down!” said Cashel. “How long will you stay down if I choose to have you up?” And, suiting the action to the word, he seized Teddy with his left hand, lifted him to his feet, threw him into a helpless position across his knee, and poised his right fist like a hammer over his upturned face. “Now,” he said, “you’re not down. What have you to say for yourself before I knock your face down your throat?”
“Don’t do it, gov’nor,” gasped Teddy. “I didn’t mean no harm. How was I to know that the young lady was a pal o’ yourn?” Here he struggled a little; and his face assumed a darker hue. “Let go, master,” he cried, almost inarticulately. “You’re ch — choking me.”
“Pray let him go,” said Lydia, disengaging herself from the butcher and catching Cashel’s arm.
Cashel, with a start, relaxed his grasp; and Teddy rolled on the ground. He went away thrusting his hands iuto his sleeves, and outfacing his disgrace by a callous grin. Cashel, without speaking, offered Lydia his arm; and she, seeing that her best course was to get away from that place with as few words as possible, accepted it, and then turned and thanked the butcher, who blushed and became speechless. The little man whose exclamation had interrupted the combat, now waved his hat, and cried,
“The British Lion forever! Three cheers for Cashel Byron.”
Cashel turned upon him curtly, and said, “Don’t you make so free with other people’s names, or perhaps you may get into trouble yourself.”
The little man retreated hastily; but the crowd responded with three cheers as Cashel, with Lydia on his arm, withdrew through a lane of disreputable-looking girls, roughs of Teddy’s class, white-aproned shopmen who had left their counters to see the fight, and a few pale clerks, who looked with awe at the prizefighter, and with wonder at the refined appearance of his companion. The two were followed by a double file of boys, who, with their eyes fixed earnestly on Cashel, walked on the footways while he conducted Lydia down the middle of the narrow street. Not one of them turned a somersault or uttered a shout. Intent on their hero, they pattered along, coming into collision with every object that lay in their path. At last Cashel stopped. They instantly stopped too. He took some bronze coin from his pocket, rattled it in his hand, and addressed them.
“Boys!” Dead silence. “Do you know what I have to do to keep up my strength?” The hitherto steadfast eyes wandered uneasily. “I have to eat a little boy for supper every night, the last thing before to bed. Now, I haven’t quite made up my mind which of you would be the most to my taste; but if one of you comes a step further, I’ll eat HIM. So, away with you.” And he jerked the coin to a considerable distance. There was a yell and a scramble; and Cashel and Lydia pursued their way unattended.
Lydia had taken advantage of the dispersion of the boys to detach herself from Cashel’s arm. She now said, speaking to him for the first time since she had interceded for Teddy,
“I am sorry to have given you so much trouble, Mr. Cashel Byron. Thank you for interfering to protect me; but I was in no real danger. I would gladly have borne with a few rough words for the sake of avoiding a disturbance.”
“There!” cried Cashel. “I knew it. You’d a deal rather I had minded my own business and not interfered. You’re sorry for the poor fellow I treated so badly; ain’t you now? That’s a woman all over.”
“I have not said one of these things.”
“Well, I don’t see what else you mean. It’s no pleasure to me to fight chance men in the streets for nothing: I don’t get my living that way. And now that I have done it for your sake, you as good as tell me I ought to have kept myself quiet.”
“Perhaps I am wrong. I hardly understand what passed. You seemed to drop from the clouds.”
“Aha! You were glad when you found me at your elbow, in spite of your talk. Come now; weren’t you glad to see me?”
“I was — very glad indeed. But by what magic did you so suddenly subdue that man? And was it necessary to sully your hands by throttling him?”
“It was a satisfaction to me; and it served him right.”
“Surely a very poor satisfaction! Did you notice that some one in the crowd called out your name, and that it seemed to frighten the man terribly?”
“Indeed? Odd, wasn’t it? But you were saying that you thought I dropped from the sky. Why, I had been following you for five minutes before! What do you think of that? If I may take the liberty of asking, how did you come to be walking round Soho at such an hour with a little ragged boy?”
Lydia explained. When she finished, it was nearly dark, and they had reached Oxford Street, where, like Lucian in Regent’s Park that afternoon, she became conscious that her companion was an object of curiosity to many of the young men who were lounging in that thoroughfare.
“Alice will think that I am lost,” she said, making a signal to a cabman. “Goodbye; and many thanks. I am always at home on Fridays, and shall be very happy to see you.”
She handed him a card. He took it, read it, looked at the back to see if there was anything written there, and then said, dubiously,
“I suppose there will be a lot of people.”
“Yes; you will meet plenty of people.”
“Hm! I wish you’d let me see you home now. I won’t ask to go any further than the gate.”
Lydia laughed. “You should be very welcome,” she said; “but I am quite safe, thank you. I need not trouble you.”
“But suppose the cabman bullies you for double fare,” persisted Cashel. “I have business up in Finchley; and your place is right in any way there. Upon my soul I have,” he added, suspecting that she doubted him. “I go every Tuesday evening to the St. John’s Wood Cestus Club.”
“I am hungry and in a hurry to got home,” said Lydia. “‘I must be gone and live, or stay and die.’ Come if you will; but in any case let us go at once.”
She got into the cab, and Cashel followed, making some remark which she did not quite catch about its being too dark