s
closed round something on the ground. Four men had joined arms with him,
and now the five of them, shouting "'Varsity!" hitting right and left,
rushed into the circle. The circle broke and Olva saw lying his length
on the ground, half-stunned, clothed only in a torn shirt of bright
blue, a stout heavy figure--once obviously, from the clothes flung to
one side, a policeman, now with his large red face in a muddy puddle,
his fat naked legs bent beneath him, his fingers clutching dirt, nothing
very human at all. Town cads of the worst! Some brute now was raising
his foot and kicking the bare flesh!

Instantly the world was on flame for Olva. Now again, as once in Sannet
Wood, he must hit and hit with all his soul. He broke, like a madman,
into the heart of the crowd, sending it flying. There were cries and
screams.

He was conscious of three faces. There was Bunning there, white,
staring. There was Craven, with his back to a house-door, staring
also--and directly before him was a purple face with muddy hair fringing
it and little beady eyes. The face of the brute who had been kicking! He
must hit. He struck and his fist broke the flesh! He was exultant . . .
at last he had, after these weeks of intangibility, found something
solid. The face broke away from him. The circle scattered back and the
fat, naked body was lying in the mud alone. There was a sudden silence.
Olva, conscious of a great power surging through his body, raised his
hand again.

A voice, shrill, terror in it, screamed, "Look out, man, he'll kill
you!"

He turned and saw under the lamplight Craven, his eyes blazing, his
finger pointed. He was suddenly cold from head to foot. The voice came,
it had seemed, from heaven. Craven's eyes were alive now with certainty.
Then there was another cry from somewhere of "The police!" and the crowd
had melted. In the little street now there were only the body of the
policeman and a handful of undergraduates.

They raised the man, poured water over him, found some of his clothes,
and two men led him, his head lolling, down the street.

There was a noisy world somewhere in the distance, but here there was
silence. Olva crept slowly out of his exultation and found himself in
the cold windy street with Bunning for his only companion.

Bunning--now a torn, dirty, bleeding Bunning--gripped his arm.

"Did you hear?"

"Hear what?"

"Craven--when you were fighting there--Craven was watching . . . I saw
it all . .