'And miss the chance of seeing a fight like that?' said Leeming in amazement. 'More fool him, I say.' he brightened as an idea struck him. 'I'd love to watch the Bargeman hit lumps out of Mad Isaac. One of the policemen knows where the fight is taking place, sir. Why don't I rush over there to keep an eye on things?'

'Because you'd be too late, Victor.'

'Too late?'

'Look up there.'

Glancing up at the sky, Leeming saw a flock of birds flying in the general direction of London. He sighed as he realised that the fight must be over. The carrier pigeons were carrying word of the result. Several, he knew, would be winging their way to Bradford.

Leeming cupped his hands to shout up at the birds.

'Who won?' he yelled. 'Was it the Bargeman?'

The trouble had begun when the fight was only an hour old. Supporters of Mad Isaac had been inflamed by what they felt were unfair tactics on the part of his opponent. When they grappled in the middle of the ring, the Bargeman used his forehead to crack down on the bridge of the other man's nose and uncorked the blood. As the fighters swung round crazily in an impromptu dance, the men from Bradford thought that they saw the Negro inflict a bite on their man's neck. They shrieked with rage. Rosen was quick to take revenge. Seized by a madness that turned him into a howling wolf, he lifted the Bargeman bodily and flung him to the ground with a force that winded him. What infuriated the London mob was that he seemed to get in a sly kick to the Negro's groin.

Demands for a disqualification rang out on all sides and a few private fights started on the fringes. The Bargeman, however, had great powers of recovery. Helped back to his corner by his seconds, he needed only a swig of water and a brief rest on a wooden stool before he was able to fight again. When the contest restarted, his arms were flailing like black windmills. And so it went on for another forty arduous rounds, advantage swinging first one way, then the other, the audience keeping up such hullabaloo that it was like watching a brawl in Bedlam. When the rowdier element began to take over, brandishing staves and cudgels, the gentry began to withdraw, worried for the safety of their vehicles and their horses in the seething morass of danger.