Her Forbidden Knight by Rex Stout

the man he was facing was by no means a tyro. He had thought that Dougherty, completely out of condition, would be unable to withstand even the crudest kind of attack and had led with a double swing. Dougherty stepped back cleverly, waited the exact fraction of a second necessary, and then lunged forward like a panther.
    Knowlton found himself on the floor with blood streaming from his nose, while the onlookers shrieked with ecstasy. He regained his feet warily, and, changing his mind as to the capabilities of his opponent, altered his tactics to suit.
    Dougherty was fighting with all the cunning at his command. He realized that he was handicapped by the shortness of his wind, but figured that this was nearly, if not quite, equalized by the fact that Knowlton was not fresh. He did not throw himself away, as he had done in the encounter with Driscoll in the billiard room of the Lamartine. Instead, he called into play all his old-time ring knowledge and relied on superior tactics and skill. He waited for another break on the part of Knowlton.
    But Knowlton was not to be caught napping again. He fought cautiously and warily, watching for an opening. He was not a pleasant sight to look at. The blood from his nose covered the lower half of his face and one side of his neck. His hair was matted with sweat, and his damp body glistened as he bent, now, forward, now to one side or the other, dodging, feinting, waiting.
    For upward of five minutes they sparred and shifted, neither one gaining any advantage or landing a punishing blow. Then it began to get warmer.
    Dougherty’s foot happened to alight on an upturned corner of the rug, and as he glanced downward for the merest fraction of a second Knowlton closed in and landed a stinging jab on his face, turning him half round.
    Instead of returning, he completed the circle, and, catching Knowlton unaware, staggered him with a left swing. They exchanged blows at close quarters, then clinched for a rest.
    Knowlton was beginning to weaken under the prolonged strain. He had played with Driscoll longer than was good for his wind, and by now he was breathing heavily, while Dougherty was comparatively fresh. He tried to hold the clinch to get his wind, but Dougherty broke away.
    Then, urged on by the exited and encouraging cries of the Erring Knights, Dougherty started in to finish it. By using his feet cleverly Knowlton avoided close fighting, but he received two body blows that made him grunt.
    In recovering from the second of these he opened his guard, and a clean uppercut on the point of the jaw bent him backward and left him dazed.
    Dougherty followed it up savagely, landing on the body at will, while Knowlton retreated blindly, covering his face with his hands. The onlookers howled with delight.
    “Now get him, Tom!”
    “It’s all yours, old boy!”
    “Keel heem!”
    But they did not know Knowlton. Driven into a corner, apparently a beaten man, he felt within himself that stirring of the spirit that comes only on the boundary line of despair.
    He had felt it before on the gridiron when, with his body a mass of bruises, he had hurled himself savagely forward and caught in a viselike grip and held the flying figure that sought to reach the sacred white line but a few feet away—on the track when, with aching legs and painful, gasping breath, he had by one last supreme effort passed the streak of white that seemed to his blurred eyes to have been there before him since the beginning of time. It is the spirit of the true fighting man.
    He pushed Dougherty away from the corner, merely shaking his head slightly as he received a swinging blow full in the face. Then he fought back stubbornly, desperately, irresistibly.
    Dougherty gave ground. It was by inches, but he retreated. Knowlton made no pretense at guarding. He simply fought.
    The tide began to turn. Dougherty fell back more rapidly. His breath came heavily.
    Perspiration ran in little rivulets down his cheeks and neck and body and