第72章
A great roar rose from the crowd, round Mack they surged like a flood, eager to grip his hands and eager to carry him off shoulder high. But he threw them off as a rock throws back the incoming tide and made for Duncan Ross, who stood, calm and pale, and with hand outstretched, waiting him. It was a new experience for Black Duncan, and a bitter, to be second in a contest. Only once in many years had he been forced to lower his colours, and to be beaten by a raw and unknown youth added to the humiliation of his defeat.
But Duncan Ross had in his veins the blood of a long line of Highland gentlemen who knew how to take defeat with a smile.
"I congratulate you, Mack Murray," he said in a firm, clear voice.
"Your fame will be through Canada tomorrow, and well you deserve it."
But Mack caught the outstretched hand in both of his and, leaning toward Black Duncan, he roared at him above the din.
"Mr. Ross, Mr. Ross, it is no win! Listen to me!" he panted.
"What are two inches in a hundred and twenty feet? A stretching of the tape will do it. No, no! Listen to me! You must listen to me as you are a man! I will not have it! You can beat me easily in the throw! At best it is a tie and nothing else will I have to-day. At least let us throw again!" he pleaded. But to this Ross would not listen for a moment.
"The lad has made his win," he said to the judges, "and his win he must have."
But Mack declared that nothing under heaven would make him change his mind. Finally the judges, too, agreed that in view of the possibility of a mistake in measuring with the tape, it would be only right and fair to count the result a tie. Black Duncan listened respectfully to the judges' decision.
"You are asking me a good deal, Mack," he said at length, "but you are a gallant lad and I am an older man and--"
"Aye! And a better!" shouted Mack.
"And so I will agree."
Once more the field was cleared. And now there fell upon the crowding people a hush as if they stood in the presence of death itself.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" said the M.P.P. "Do you realise that you are looking upon a truly great contest, a contest great enough to be of national, yes, of international, importance?"
"You bet your sweet life!" cried the irrepressible Fatty. "We're going some. 'What's the matter with our Mack?'" he shouted.
"'HE'S--ALL--RIGHT!'" came back the chant from the surrounding hills in hundreds of voices.
"And what's the matter with Duncan Ross?" cried Mack, waving a hand above his head.
Again the assurance of perfect rightness came back in a mighty roar from the hills. But it was hushed into immediate silence, a silence breathless and overwhelming, for Black Duncan had taken once more his place with the hammer in his hand.
"Oh, I do wish they would hurry!" gasped Isa, her hands pressed hard upon her heart.
"My heart is rather weak, too," said the M.P.P. "I fear I cannot last much longer. Ah! There he goes, thank God!"
"Amen!" fervently responds little Mrs. Freeman, who, in the intensity of her excitement, is standing on a chair holding tight by her husband's coat collar.
Not a sound breaks the silence as Black Duncan takes his swing.
It is a crucial moment in his career. Only by one man in Canada has he ever been beaten, and with the powers of his antagonist all untried and unknown, for anyone could see that Mack has not yet thrown his best, he may be called upon to surrender within the next few minutes the proud position he has held so long in the athletic world. But there is not a sign of excitement in his face. With great care, and with almost painful deliberation, he balances the hammer for a moment or two, then once--twice--and, with a tremendous quickening of speed,--thrice--he swings, and his throw is made. A great throw it is, anyone can see, and one that beats the winner.
In hushed and strained silence the people await the result.
"One hundred and twenty-one feet nine."
Then rises the roar that has been held pent up during the last few nerve-racking minutes.
"It iss a good enough throw," said Black Duncan with a quiet smile, "but there iss more in me yet. Now, lad, do your best and there will be no hard feeling with thiss man whateffer happens."
Black Duncan's accent and idioms reveal the intense excitement that lies behind his quiet face.
Mack takes the hammer.
"I will not beat it, you may be sure," he says. "But I will just take a fling at it anyway."
"Now, Mack," says Cameron, "for the sake of all you love forget the distance and show them the Braemar swing. Easy and slow."
But Mack waves him aside and stands pondering. He is "getting the idea."
"Man, do you see him?" whispers his brother Danny, who stands near to Cameron. "I believe he has got it."
Cameron nods his head. Mack wears an impressive air of confidence and strength.
"It will be a great throw," says Cameron to Danny.
"Easy and slow" Mack poises the great hammer in his hand, swinging it gently backward and forward as if it had been a boy's toy, the great muscles in arms and back rippling up and down in firm full waves under his white skin, for he is now stripped to the waist for this throw.
Suddenly, as if at command, the muscles seem to spring to their places, tense, alert. "Easy." Yes, truly, but by no means "slow."
"Easy," the great hammer swings about his head in whirling circles, swift and ever swifter. Once--and twice--the great muscles in back and arms and back and legs knotted in bunches--thrice!
"Ah-h-h!" A long, wailing, horrible sound, half moan, half cry, breaks from the people. Mack has missed his direction, and the great hammer, weighted with the potentialities of death, is describing a parabola high over the heads of the crowding, shrieking, scattering people.
"Oh, my God! My God! Oh, my God! My God!" With his hands covering his eyes the big man is swaying from side to side like a mighty tree before a tempest. Cameron and Ross both spring to him.
On the hillsides men stand rigid, pale, shaking; women shriek and faint. One ghastly moment of suspense, and then a horrid sickening thud; one more agonising second of silence, and then from a score of throats rises a cry: