The Best of Robert E. Howard, Volume 2 Page 22

I bring no love but fury,

  No blessing but a curse.

  My low pitched brow is slanting,

  My eyes are burning red,

  With fierce black primal visions

  That thunder in my head;

  Behind my heart the rivers

  And all the jungles spread.

  I slaved in star-girt Babel

  And labored at the wall;

  I watched the birth of pavements

  Beneath my slugging maul –

  And in a frenzied dawning

  I saw her towers fall.

  I toiled in Tuscan vineyards,

  I broke the beaten loam,

  I strained against the mallet

  That drove the chisel home;

  I sweated in the galleys

  That broke the road to Rome.

  Oh, Khan and king and pharaoh!

  In cold and drouth and heat

  I bled to build your glory,

  An ant beneath your feet –

  But always rose a morning

  When blood ran in the street.

  The world upon my shoulders

  Knee deep in muck and silt,

  My hand beneath my tatters

  Still grips the hidden hilt –

  Who fed the ancient rivers

  With blood rebellions spilt?

  The Bull Dog Breed

  “And so,” concluded the Old Man, “this big bully ducked the seltzer bottle and the next thing I knowed I knowed nothin’. I come to with the general idee that the Sea-Girl was sinkin’ with all hands and I was drownin’ – but it was only some chump pourin’ water all over me to bring me to. Oh, yeah, the big French cluck I had the row with was nobody much, I learned – just only merely nobody but Tiger Valois, the heavyweight champion of the French navy –”

  Me and the crew winked at each other. Until the captain decided to unburden to Penrhyn, the first mate, in our hearing, we’d wondered about the black eye he’d sported following his night ashore in Manila. He’d been in an unusual bad temper ever since, which means he’d been acting like a sore-tailed hyena. The Old Man was a Welshman, and he hated a Frenchman like he hated a snake. He now turned on me.

  “If you was any part of a man, you big mick ham,” he said bitterly, “you wouldn’t stand around and let a blankety-blank French so-on and so-forth lay out your captain. Oh, yeah, I know you wasn’t there, then, but if you’ll fight him –”

  “Aragh!” I said with sarcasm, “leavin’ out the fact that I’d stand a great chance of gettin’ matched with Valois – why not pick me somethin’ easy, like Dempsey? Do you realize you’re askin’ me, a ordinary ham-an’-egger, to climb the original and only Tiger Valois that’s whipped everything in European and the Asian waters and looks like a sure bet for the world’s title?”

  “Gerahh!” snarled the Old Man. “Me that’s boasted in every port of the Seven Seas that I shipped the toughest crew since the days of Harry Morgan –” He turned his back in disgust and immediately fell over my white bulldog, Mike, who was taking a snooze by the hatch. The Old Man give a howl as he come up and booted the innocent pup most severe. Mike instantly attached hisself to the Old Man’s leg, from which I at last succeeded in prying him with a loss of some meat and the pants leg.

  The captain danced hither and yon about the deck on one foot while he expressed his feelings at some length and the crew stopped work to listen and admire.

  “And get me right, Steve Costigan,” he wound up, “the Sea-Girl is too small for me and that double-dash dog. He goes ashore at the next port. Do you hear me?”

  “Then I go ashore with him,” I answered with dignity. “It was not Mike what caused you to get a black eye, and if you had not been so taken up in abusin’ me you would not have fell over him.

  “Mike is a Dublin gentleman, and no Welsh water rat can boot him and get away with it. If you want to banish your best A.B. mariner, it’s up to you. Till we make port you keep your boots off of Mike, or I will personally kick you loose from your spine. If that’s mutiny, make the most of it – and, Mister First Mate, I see you easin’ toward that belayin’ pin on the rail, and I call to your mind what I done to the last man that hit me with a belayin’ pin.”

  There was a coolness between me and the Old Man thereafter. The old nut was pretty rough and rugged, but good at heart, and likely he was ashamed of himself, but he was too stubborn to admit it, besides still being sore at me and Mike. Well, he paid me off without a word at Hong-Kong, and I went down the gangplank with Mike at my heels, feeling kind of queer and empty, though I wouldn’t show it for nothing, and acted like I was glad to get off the old tub. But since I growed up, the Sea-Girl’s been the only home I knowed, and though I’ve left her from time to time to prowl around loose or to make a fight tour, I’ve always come back to her.

  Now I knowed I couldn’t come back, and it hit me hard. The Sea-Girl is the only thing I’m champion of, and as I went ashore I heard the sound of Mushy Hansen and Bill O’Brien trying to decide which should succeed to my place of honor.

  Well, maybe some will say I should of sent Mike ashore and stayed on, but to my mind, a man that won’t stand by his dog is lower down than one which won’t stand by his fellow man.

  Some years ago I’d picked Mike up wandering around the wharfs of Dublin and fighting everything he met on four legs and not averse to tackling two-legged critters. I named him Mike after a brother of mine, Iron Mike Costigan, rather well known in them higher fight circles where I’ve never gotten to.

  Well, I wandered around the dives and presently fell in with Tom Roche, a lean, fighting engineer that I once knocked out in Liverpool. We meandered around, drinking here and there, though not very much, and presently found ourselves in a dump a little different from the general run. A French joint, kinda more highbrow, if you get me. A lot of swell-looking fellows was in there drinking, and the bartenders and waiters, all French, scowled at Mike, but said nothing. I was unburdening my woes to Tom, when I noticed a tall, elegant young man with a dress suit, cane and gloves stroll by our table. He seemed well known in the dump, because birds all around was jumping up from their tables and waving their glasses and yelling at him in French. He smiled back in a superior manner and flourished his cane in a way which irritated me. This galoot rubbed me the wrong way right from the start, see?

  Well, Mike was snoozing close to my chair as usual, and, like any other fighter, Mike was never very particular where he chose to snooze. This big bimbo could have stepped over him or around him, but he stopped and prodded Mike with his cane. Mike opened one eye, looked up and lifted his lip in a polite manner, just like he was sayin’: “We don’t want no trouble; go ’long and leave me alone.”

  Then this French dipthong drawed back his patent leather shoe and kicked Mike hard in the ribs. I was out of my chair in a second, seeing red, but Mike was quicker. He shot up off the floor, not for the Frenchman’s leg, but for his throat. But the Frenchman, quick as a flash, crashed his heavy cane down across Mike’s head, and the bulldog hit the floor and laid still. The next minute the Frenchman hit the floor, and believe me he laid still! My right-hander to the jaw put him down, and the crack his head got against the corner of the bar kept him there.

  I bent over Mike, but he was already coming around, in spite of the fact that a loaded cane had been broken over his head. It took a blow like that to put Mike out, even for a few seconds. The instant he got his bearings, his eyes went red and he started out to find what hit him and tear it up. I grabbed him, and for a minute it was all I could do to hold him. Then the red faded out of his eyes and he wagged his stump of a tail and licked my nose. But I knowed the first good chance he had at the Frenchman he’d rip out his throat or die trying. The only way you can lick a bulldog is to kill him.

  Being taken up with Mike I hadn’t had much time to notice what was going on. But a gang of French sailors had tried to rush me and had stopped at the sight of a gun in Tom Roche’s hand. A real fighting man was Tom, and a bad egg t
o fool with.

  By this time the Frenchman had woke up; he was standing with a handkerchief at his mouth, which latter was trickling blood, and honest to Jupiter I never saw such a pair of eyes on a human! His face was dead white, and those black, burning eyes blazed out at me – say, fellows! – they carried more than hate and a desire to muss me up! They was mutilation and sudden death! Once I seen a famous duelist in Heidelberg who’d killed ten men in sword fights – he had just such eyes as this fellow.

  A gang of Frenchies was around him all whooping and yelling and jabbering at once, and I couldn’t understand a word none of them said. Now one come prancing up to Tom Roche and shook his fist in Tom’s face and pointed at me and yelled, and pretty soon Tom turned around to me and said: “Steve, this yam is challengin’ you to a duel – what about?”

  I thought of the German duelist and said to myself: “I bet this bird was born with a fencin’ sword in one hand and a duelin’ pistol in the other.” I opened my mouth to say “Nothin’ doin’ –” when Tom pipes: “You’re the challenged party – the choice of weapons is up to you.”

  At that I hove a sigh of relief and a broad smile flitted across my homely but honest countenance. “Tell him I’ll fight him,” I said, “with five-ounce boxin’ gloves.”

  Of course I figured this bird never saw a boxing glove. Now, maybe you think I was doing him dirty, pulling a fast one like that – but what about him? All I was figuring on was mussing him up a little, counting on him not knowing a left hook from a neutral corner – takin’ a mean advantage, maybe, but he was counting on killing me, and I’d never had a sword in my hand, and couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a gun.

  Well, Tom told them what I said and the cackling and gibbering bust out all over again, and to my astonishment I saw a cold, deadly smile waft itself across the sinister, handsome face of my tête-à-tête.

  “They ask who you are,” said Tom. “I told ’em Steve Costigan, of America. This bird says his name is Francois, which he opines is enough for you. He says that he’ll fight you right away at the exclusive Napoleon Club, which it seems has a ring account of it occasionally sponsoring prize fights.”

  As we wended our way toward the aforesaid club, I thought deeply. It seemed very possible that this Francois, whoever he was, knew something of the manly art. Likely, I thought, a rich clubman who took up boxing for a hobby. Well, I reckoned he hadn’t heard of me, because no amateur, however rich, would think he had a chance against Steve Costigan, known in all ports as the toughest sailor in the Asian waters – if I do say so myself – and champion of – what I mean – ex-champion of the Sea-Girl, the toughest of all the trading vessels.

  A kind of pang went through me just then at the thought that my days with the old tub was ended, and I wondered what sort of a dub would take my place at mess and sleep in my bunk, and how the forecastle gang would haze him, and how all the crew would miss me – I wondered if Bill O’Brien had licked Mushy Hansen or if the Dane had won, and who called hisself champion of the craft now –

  Well, I felt low in spirits, and Mike knowed it, because he snuggled up closer to me in the ’rickshaw that was carrying us to the Napoleon Club, and licked my hand. I pulled his ears and felt better. Anyway, Mike wouldn’t never desert me.

  Pretty ritzy affair this club. Footmen or butlers or something in uniform at the doors, and they didn’t want to let Mike in. But they did – oh, yeah, they did.

  In the dressing room they give me, which was the swellest of its sort I ever see, and looked more like a girl’s boodwar than a fighter’s dressing room, I said to Tom: “This big ham must have lots of dough – notice what a hand they all give him? Reckon I’ll get a square deal? Who’s goin’ to referee? If it’s a Frenchman, how’m I gonna follow the count?”

  “Well, gee whiz!” Tom said, “you ain’t expectin’ him to count over you, are you?”

  “No,” I said. “But I’d like to keep count of what he tolls off over the other fellow.”

  “Well,” said Tom, helping me into the green trunks they’d give me, “don’t worry none. I understand Francois can speak English, so I’ll specify that the referee shall converse entirely in that language.”

  “Then why didn’t this Francois ham talk English to me?” I wanted to know.

  “He didn’t talk to you in anything,” Tom reminded me. “He’s a swell and thinks you’re beneath his notice – except only to knock your head off.”

  “H’mm,” said I thoughtfully, gently touching the slight cut which Francois’ cane had made on Mike’s incredibly hard head. A slight red mist, I will admit, waved in front of my eyes.

  When I climbed into the ring I noticed several things: mainly the room was small and elegantly furnished; second, there was only a small crowd there, mostly French, with a scattering of English and one Chink in English clothes. There was high hats, frock-tailed coats and gold-knobbed canes everywhere, and I noted with some surprise that they was also a sprinkling of French sailors.

  I sat in my corner, and Mike took his stand just outside, like he always does when I fight, standing on his hind legs with his head and forepaws resting on the edge of the canvas, and looking under the ropes. On the street, if a man soaks me he’s likely to have Mike at his throat, but the old dog knows how to act in the ring. He won’t interfere, though sometimes when I’m on the canvas or bleeding bad his eyes get red and he rumbles away down deep in his throat.

  Tom was massaging my muscles light-like and I was scratching Mike’s ears when into the ring comes Francois the Mysterious. Qui! Qui! I noted now how much of a man he was, and Tom whispers to me to pull in my chin a couple of feet and stop looking so goofy. When Francois threw off his silk embroidered bathrobe I saw I was in for a rough session, even if this bird was only an amateur. He was one of these fellows that look like a fighting man, even if they’ve never seen a glove before.

  A good six one and a half he stood, or an inch and a half taller than me. A powerful neck sloped into broad, flexible shoulders, a limber steel body tapered to a girlishly slender waist. His legs was slim, strong and shapely, with narrow feet that looked speedy and sure; his arms was long, thick, but perfectly molded. Oh, I tell you, this Francois looked more like a champion than any man I’d seen since I saw Dempsey last.

  And the face – his sleek black hair was combed straight back and lay smooth on his head, adding to his sinister good looks. From under narrow black brows them eyes burned at me, and now they wasn’t a duelist’s eyes – they was tiger eyes. And when he gripped the ropes and dipped a couple of times, flexing his muscles, them muscles rippled under his satiny skin most beautiful, and he looked just like a big cat sharpening his claws on a tree.

  “Looks fast, Steve,” Tom Roche said, looking serious. “May know somethin’; you better crowd him from the gong and keep rushin’ –”

  “How else did I ever fight?” I asked.

  A sleek-looking Frenchman with a sheik mustache got in the ring and, waving his hands to the crowd, which was still jabbering for Francois, he bust into a gush of French.

  “What’s he mean?” I asked Tom, and Tom said, “Aw, he’s just sayin’ what everybody knows – that this ain’t a regular prize fight, but an affair of honor between you and – uh – that Francois fellow there.”

  Tom called him and talked to him in French, and he turned around and called an Englishman out of the crowd. Tom asked me was it all right with me for the Englishman to referee, and I tells him yes, and they asked Francois and he nodded in a supercilious manner. So the referee asked me what I weighed and I told him, and he hollered: “This bout is to be at catch weights, Marquis of Queensberry rules. Three-minute rounds, one minute rest; to a finish, if it takes all night. In this corner, Monsieur Francois, weight 205 pounds; in this corner, Steve Costigan of America, weight 190 pounds. Are you ready, gentlemen?”

  ’Stead of standing outside the ring, English style, the referee stayed in with us, American fashion. The gong sounded and I was out of my corner. Al
l I seen was that cold, sneering, handsome face, and all I wanted to do was to spoil it. And I very nearly done it the first charge. I came in like a house afire and I walloped Francois with an overhand right hook to the chin – more by sheer luck than anything, and it landed high. But it shook him to his toes, and the sneering smile faded.

  Too quick for the eye to follow, his straight left beat my left hook, and it packed the jarring kick that marks a puncher. The next minute, when I missed with both hands and got that left in my pan again, I knowed I was up against a master boxer, too.

  I saw in a second I couldn’t match him for speed and skill. He was like a cat; each move he made was a blur of speed, and when he hit he hit quick and hard. He was a brainy fighter – he thought out each move while traveling at high speed, and he was never at a loss what to do next.

  Well, my only chance was to keep on top of him, and I kept crowding him, hitting fast and heavy. He wouldn’t stand up to me, but back-pedaled all around the ring. Still, I got the idea that he wasn’t afraid of me, but was retreating with a purpose of his own. But I never stop to figure out why the other bird does something.

  He kept reaching me with that straight left, until finally I dived under it and sank my right deep into his midriff. It shook him – it should of brought him down. But he clinched and tied me up so I couldn’t hit or do nothing. As the referee broke us Francois scraped his glove laces across my eyes. With an appropriate remark, I threw my right at his head with everything I had, but he drifted out of the way, and I fell into the ropes from the force of my own swing. The crowd howled with laughter, and then the gong sounded.

  “This baby’s tough,” said Tom, back in my corner, as he rubbed my belly muscles, “but keep crowdin’ him, get inside that left, if you can. And watch the right.”

  I reached back to scratch Mike’s nose and said, “You watch this round.”

  Well, I reckon it was worth watching. Francois changed his tactics, and as I come in he met me with a left to the nose that started the claret and filled my eyes full of water and stars. While I was thinking about that he opened a cut under my left eye with a venomous right-hander and then stuck the same hand into my midriff. I woke up and bent him double with a savage left hook to the liver, crashing him with an overhand right behind the ear before he could straighten. He shook his head, snarled a French cuss word and drifted back behind that straight left where I couldn’t reach him.