Quite Naturally, My Brother Regarded Jack As One Of His Greatest
Heroes, And Whenever He Heard Of His Being In
Our neighbourhood he
would mount his horse and go off in search of him, to spend long hours
in his
Company and persuade him to talk about that awful fight in a
dark room with so many against him. One result of his intimacy with
Jack was that he became dissatisfied with his own progress in the
manly art of self-defence. It was all very well to make himself
proficient with the foils and as a boxer, and to be a good shot, but
he was living among people who had the knife for sole weapon, and if
by chance he were attacked by a man with a knife, and had no pistol or
other weapon, he would find himself in an exceedingly awkward
position. There was then nothing to do but to practise with the knife,
and he wanted Jack, who had been so successful with that weapon, to
give him some lessons in its use.
Jack shook his head. If his boy friend wanted to learn the gaucho way
of fighting he could easily do so. The gaucho wrapped his poncho on
his left arm to use it as a shield, and flourished his facon, or knife
with a sword-like blade and a guard to the handle. This whirling about
of the knife was quite an art, and had a fine look when two
accomplished fighters stood up to each other and made their weapons
look like shining wheels or revolving mirrors in the sun. Meanwhile,
the object of each man was to find his opportunity for a sweeping blow
which would lay his opponent's face open. Now all that was pretty to
look at, but it was mere playing at fighting and he never wanted to
practise it. He was not a fighter by inclination; he wanted to live
with and be one with the gauchos, but not to fight. There were numbers
of men among them who never fought and were never challenged to fight,
and he would be of those if they would let him. He never had a pistol,
he wore a knife like everybody else, but a short knife for use and not
to fight. But when he found that, after all, he had to fight or else
exist on sufferance as a despised creature among them, the butt of
every fool and bully, he did fight in a way which he had never been
taught and could not teach to another. It was nature: it was in him.
When the dangerous moment came and knives flashed out, he was
instantly transformed into a different being. He was on springs, he
couldn't keep still or in one place for a second, or a fraction of a
second; he was like a cat, like india rubber, like steel - like
anything you like, but something that flew round and about his
opponent and was within striking distance one second and a dozen yards
away the next, and when an onset was looked for it never came where it
was expected but from another side, and in two minutes his opponent
became confused, and struck blindly at him, and his opportunity came,
not to slash and cut but to drive his knife with all his power to the
heart in the other's body and finish him for ever.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 143 of 186
Words from 75371 to 75944
of 98444