cross to the towing-path, and the last
of the men who were to follow the boats in their course had vanished
towards the starting-point. There remained, however, a fringe of lesser
enthusiasts. Their figures stood outlined sharply in that strange dark
clearness which immediately precedes a storm.

The thunder rumbled around the hills, and now and again there was a
faint glare on the horizon.

Would Judas bump Magdalen? Opinion on the raft seemed to be divided. But
the sanguine spirits were in a majority.

"If I were making a book on the event," said a middle-aged clergyman,
with that air of breezy emancipation which is so distressing to the
laity, "I'd bet two to one we bump."

"You demean your cloth, sir," the Duke would have said, "without
cheating its disabilities," had not his mouth been stopped by a loud and
prolonged thunder-clap.

In the hush thereafter, came the puny sound of a gunshot. The boats were
starting. Would Judas bump Magdalen? Would Judas be head of the river?

Strange, thought the Duke, that for him, standing as he did on the peak
of dandyism, on the brink of eternity, this trivial question of boats
could have importance. And yet, and yet, for this it was that his heart
was beating. A few minutes hence, an end to victors and vanquished
alike; and yet...

A sudden white vertical streak slid down the sky. Then there was
a consonance to split the drums of the world's ears, followed by
a horrific rattling as of actual artillery--tens of thousands of
gun-carriages simultaneously at the gallop, colliding, crashing, heeling
over in the blackness.

Then, and yet more awful, silence; the little earth cowering voiceless
under the heavens' menace. And, audible in the hush now, a faint sound;
the sound of the runners on the towing-path cheering the crews forward,
forward.

And there was another faint sound that came to the Duke's ears. It he
understood when, a moment later, he saw the surface of the river alive
with infinitesimal fountains.

Rain!

His very mantle was aspersed. In another minute he would stand sodden,
inglorious, a mock. He didn't hesitate.

"Zuleika!" he cried in a loud voice. Then he took a deep breath, and,
burying his face in his mantle, plunged.

Full on the river lay the mantle outspread. Then it, too, went under. A
great roll of water marked the spot. The plumed hat floated.

There was a confusion of shouts from the raft, of screams from the roof.
Many youths--all the yo