Tom, Dick and Harry Part 38

I returned dismally into the dark gymnasium and flung the blazer on to the nearest seat; and then hurried back to report the result of my mission to Tempest.

As I guessed, our poor guy downstairs was likely to be nowhere in the explosion which this last insult called forth.

With clenched teeth Tempest sprang from his seat and s.n.a.t.c.hed his cap.

"It's awfully dark," said I; "if you're going, you'd better take some matches."

"Fetch me some," said he, with a harsh, dry voice. I fled off, and returned with a box of fusees, which the Philosophers had laid in for the approaching celebration of Guy Fawkes' Day.

Tempest s.n.a.t.c.hed them from my hand and strode off. I wished he had let me go with him. I heard his footsteps swing heavily across the quadrangle, as if challenging the notice of the enemy. Whether the enemy heard or answered the challenge I could not say. The steps died away into silence, and I listened in vain for further sign.

Presently I returned to the f.a.ggery, where the Philosophers were just preparing to obey the summons to bed.

Hurriedly I recited the event of the evening, and for once was honoured with their rapt and excited attention.

"My eye, what a shame we can't go out and see the fun!" cried Langrish.

"I hope he makes jelly of him," said Trimble. "I'm jolly glad I'm his f.a.g."

This brought on a crisis I had rather feared.

"You're not," said I. "Pridgin has swopped me for you."

"What!" screamed Trimble, taking a running kick at my shins.

"I didn't do it. Shut up. Trim! that's my leg you're kicking. It was Pridgin. Go and kick him," said I.

But Trim was in no mood to listen to reason.

"I always said you were a sneak," snarled he; "now I know it. Come and kick the beast, you fellows. It's all a low dodge. Kick him, I say."

The company showed every disposition to respond to the appeal.

"Look here," said I, "it's not my fault--but if you kick me, I'll tell him about your precious guy, and you can look after him yourself; I shan't. There!"

This rather fetched them. As custodian of that illicit effigy I had my uses, and they hardly cared to dispense with me. So Trimble was ordered not to make an a.s.s of himself, and the discussion went back to Tempest and his blazer.

"I tell you what," said Warminster. "I vote we hang about a bit and cheer him when he comes in. There's no one to lag us for not going to bed, and we may as well stay and back him up."

With which patriotic resolve we resumed our seats and occupied the interval with auditing the accounts of the club--a painful and tedious operation which gave rise to much dispute and recrimination, particularly when it was discovered that on paper we were 25 shillings to the good, whereas in the treasurer's pocket we were 6 shillings to the bad.

The treasurer had a bad quarter of an hour of it, till it was discovered that the auditors had accidentally forgotten to carry the total of one column to the top of the next, an oversight which nearly brought about the dissolution of the club, so fierce was the storm which raged over it.

More than half an hour was spent over these proceedings, and we began to wonder why Tempest had not come back. It was certain he must have been stopped by somebody, or he would have been back in ten minutes. Had he and Jarman had an encounter? Was Mr Jarman at that moment begging for quarter? or was our man answering for his riot to the head master?

Half an hour pa.s.sed, three-quarters, an hour. Then, just as we were giving him up, hurried footsteps came across the quadrangle, and Tempest, with pale face and disordered guise, carrying his blazer on his arm, entered and pa.s.sed rapidly to his room. His countenance was too forbidding for us to venture on our promised cheer. Something unusual had happened. How we longed to know what it was!

I was thrust forward to follow him to his study, on the chance of ascertaining, and was on the point of obeying, when a terrific sound broke the silence of the night, and sent us back with white, rigid faces in a heap into the f.a.ggery.

The sound proceeded from the direction of the gymnasium--first of all, a dull, spasmodic thunder; then a fierce burst, followed almost immediately by two tremendous reports which shook us to the soles of our boots.

It reminded me of that fearful night at Dangerfield, when Tempest--

I clung on to Langrish, who was next to me, in mute despair, and Langrish in turn embraced Trimble.

"Those," gasped the voice of c.o.xhead, "were the--ginger--beer--bottles.

What--shall--we--do?"

"Cut to bed sharp!" said the resolute though quavering voice of Warminster, "and lie low."

"There won't be much of him left," whispered Trimble, "that's one good thing," as we huddled off our clothes in the dark in the dormitory.

It was a gleam of comfort, certainly. Effigies of that kind, when they do go off, leave few marks of ident.i.ty behind them.

"Who let it off?" I ventured to ask. "No one knew about it except us."

"Look out! There's somebody coming!"

It was Mr Sharpe, who looked in, candle in hand, to see if any one had been disturbed by the noise. But every one was sleeping peacefully, blissfully unconscious that anything had happened.

"Narrow shave that," said Langrish, when the master had retired.

"I say," said Trimble. "I wonder if Tempest--"

Here he pulled up, but a m.u.f.fled whistle of dismay took up his meaning.

"If he did, he must have found it out by himself. I never said a word to him," said I.

"You were bound to make a mess of it," said c.o.xhead. "Why ever couldn't you stick the thing where n.o.body could find it?"

"So I did; it was leaning up against the cellar wall; no one could possibly get at it."

"Why not? the area door's open."

"No, it ain't. I locked it, and hid the key," said I, triumphantly, "for fear of accident, under the sc.r.a.per."

"Good old Sarah--that's lucky. But what about the grating in the gymnasium floor? Couldn't you twig it through that?"

"Not unless you were looking for it. And if you could, you couldn't get at it."

"Well," said Trimble, rather brutally, "I hope it's all right, for your sake. Fellows who keep guys must take the consequences. It would have been much safer if you'd kept it under your bed."

"You may keep the next," growled I. "I've done with it."

Considering the probable condition of the luckless effigy at that moment, n.o.body was inclined to contradict me; and the Philosophers relapsed into gloomy silence, and eventually fell asleep.

I was probably the last to reach that blissful stage. For hours I lay awake, a prey to the most dismal reflections. To do myself justice, my own peril afflicted me at the time--perhaps because I did not realise it--less than Tempest's. Whether he had blown up the guy or not, things would be sure to look black against him, and my recollection of the episode of Hector's death told me he would come out of it badly. How, if he had done it, he had contrived to get at the explosives, I could not fathom. I was sure, even with his grudge against Jarman, he was not the sort of fellow to take a revenge that was either mean or dastardly; and yet--and yet--and yet--

When with one accord we woke next morning it needed no special intimation to be aware that something had happened at Low Heath.