Page 117 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

Pressing with all the might of his muscles, he strove to re-
sist the leverage which the giant was applying to turn him
over, but he might as well have pushed against a stone wall.
With his eyes protruding, and every sinew strained to its
uttermost, he was slowly forced round, and he felt Gabbett
releasing his grasp, in order to draw back and aim at him
an effectual blow. Disengaging his left hand, Frere sudden-
ly allowed himself to sink, and then, drawing up his right
knee, struck Gabbett beneath the jaw, and as the huge head
was forced backwards by the blow, dashed his fist into the
brawny throat. The giant reeled backwards, and, falling on
his hands and knees, was in an instant surrounded by sail-
ors.
Now began and ended, in less time than it takes to write
it, one of those Homeric struggles of one man against twen-
ty, which are none the less heroic because the Ajax is a
convict, and the Trojans merely ordinary sailors. Shaking
his assailants to the deck as easily as a wild boar shakes off
the dogs which clamber upon his bristly sides, the convict
sprang to his feet, and, whirling the snatched-up cutlass
round his head, kept the circle at bay. Four times did the
soldiers round the hatchway raise their muskets, and four
times did the fear of wounding the men who had flung
themselves upon the enraged giant compel them to restrain
their fire. Gabbett, his stubbly hair on end, his bloodshot
eyes glaring with fury, his great hand opening and shutting
in air, as though it gasped for something to seize, turned
himself about from side to side—now here, now there, bel-
lowing like a wounded bull. His coarse shirt, rent from

11 For the Term of His Natural Life