Gladiator Philip Wylie (learn to read books .TXT) 📖

dodged twice. The crescendo roar of the Webster section came to him dimly. He avoided the safety man and ran to the goal. In the pandemonium afterwards, Jerry kicked the goal.

A new kickoff. Hugo felt a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve gotta break this up.” Hugo broke it up. He held Yale almost single-handed. They kicked back. Hugo returned the kick to the middle of the field. He did not dare to do more.

Then he stood in his leather helmet, bent, alert, waiting to run again. They called the captain’s signal. He made four yards. Then Lefty’s. He made a first down. Then Jerry’s. Two yards. Six yards. Five yards. Another first down. The stands were insane. Hugo was glad they were not using him⁠—glad until he saw Jerry Painter’s face. It was pale with rage. Blood trickled across it from a small cut. Three tries failed. Hugo spoke to him. “I’ll take it over, Jerry, if you say so.”

Jerry doubled his fist and would have struck him if Hugo had not stepped back. “God damn you, Danner, you come out here in the last few minutes all fresh and make us look like a lot of fools. I tell you, my team and I will take that ball across and not you with your bastard tricks.”

“But, good God, man⁠—”

“You heard me.”

“This is your last down.”

There was time for nothing more. Lefty called Jerry’s signal, and Jerry failed. The other team took the ball, rushed it twice, and kicked back into the Webster territory. Again the tired, dogged players began a march forward. The ball was not given to Hugo. He did his best, using his body as a ram to open holes in the line, tripping tacklers with his body, fighting within the limits of an appearance of human strength to get his teammates through to victory. And Jerry, still pale and profane, drove the men like slaves. It was useless. If Hugo had dared more, they might have succeeded. But they lost the ball again. It was only in the last few seconds that an exhausted and victorious team relinquished the ball to Webster.

Jerry ordered his own number again. Hugo, cold and somewhat furious at the vanity and injustice of the performance, gritted his teeth. “How about letting me try, Jerry? I can make it. It’s for Webster⁠—not for you.”

“You go to hell.”

Lefty said: “You’re out of your head, Jerry.”

“I said I’d take it.”

For one instant Hugo looked into his eyes. And in that instant the captain saw a dark and flickering fury that filled him with fear. The whistle blew. And then Hugo, to his astonishment, heard his signal. Lefty was disobeying the captain. He felt the ball in his arms. He ran smoothly. Suddenly he saw a dark shadow in the air. The captain hit him on the jaw with all his strength. After that, Hugo did not think lucidly. He was momentarily berserk. He ran into the line raging and upset it like a row of tenpins. He raced into the open. A single man, thirty yards away, stood between him and the goal. The man drew near in an instant. Hugo doubled his arm to slug him. He felt the arm straighten, relented too late, and heard, above the chaos that was loose, a sudden, dreadful snap. The man’s head flew back and he dropped. Hugo ran across the goal. The gun stopped the game. But, before the avalanche fell upon him, Hugo saw his victim lying motionless on the field. What followed was nightmare. The singing and the cheering. The parade. The smashing of the goal posts. The gradual descent of silence. A pause. A shudder. He realized that he had been let down from the shoulders of the students. He saw Woodman, waving his hands, his face a graven mask. The men met in the midst of that turbulence.

“You killed him, Hugo.”

The earth spun and rocked slowly. He was paying his first price for losing his temper. “Killed him?”

“His neck was broken-in three places.”

Some of the others heard. They walked away. Presently Hugo was standing alone on the cinders outside the stadium. Lefty came up. “I just heard about it. Tough luck. But don’t let it break you.”

Hugo did not answer. He knew that he was guilty of a sort of murder. In his own eyes it was murder. He had given away for one red moment to the leaping, lusting urge to smash the world. And killed a man. They would never accuse him. They would never talk about it. Only Woodman, perhaps, would guess the thing behind the murder⁠—the demon inside Hugo that was tame, except then, when his captain in jealous and inferior rage had struck him.

It was night. Out of deference to the body of the boy lying in the Webster chapel there was no celebration. Every ounce of glory and joy had been drained from the victory. The students left Hugo to a solitude that was more awful than a thousand scornful tongues. They thought he would feel as they would feel about such an accident. They gave him respect when he needed counsel. As he sat by himself, he thought that he should tell them the truth, all of them, confess a crime and accept the punishment. Hours passed. At midnight Woodman called.

“There isn’t much to say, Hugo. I’m sorry, you’re sorry, we’re all sorry. But it occurred to me that you might do something foolish⁠—tell these people all about it, for example.”

“I was going to.”

“Don’t. They’d never understand. You’d be involved in a legal war that would undoubtedly end in your acquittal. But it would drag in all your friends⁠—and your mother and father⁠—particularly him. The papers would go wild. You might, on the other hand, be executed as a menace. You can’t tell.”

“It might be a good thing,” Hugo answered bitterly.

“Don’t let me hear you say that, you fool! I tell you, Hugo, if you go into that business, I’ll get up on the