ed the ball hard in his hand, and walked back to the end of
his run. "Play!" cried the umpire, and amid dead silence the ball shot
from the bowler's hand.

Next moment there rose a shout loud enough to deafen all Saint
Dominic's. The ball was flying fifty feet up in the air, and Raleigh
was slowly walking, bat in hand, back to the tent he had only a moment
ago quitted!

The captain had been clean bowled, first ball!

Who shall describe the excitement, the yelling, the cheering, the
consternation that followed? Paul got up and danced a hornpipe on the
bench; Bramble kicked the boy nearest to him. "Well bowled, sir!"
shouted some. "Hard lines!" screamed others. "Hurrah for the Fifth!"

"You'll beat them yet, Sixth!" such were a few of the shouts audible
above the general clamour.

As for Stephen, he was wild with joy. He was a staunch partisan of the
Fifth in any case, but that was nothing to the fact that it was _his_
brother, his own brother and nobody else's, who had bowled that eventful
ball, and who was at that moment the hero of Saint Dominic's. Stephen
felt as proud and elated as if he had bowled the ball himself, and could
afford to be absolutely patronising to those around him, on the head of
this achievement.

"That wasn't a bad ball of Oliver's," he said to Paul. "He can bowl
very well when he tries."

"It was a beastly fluke!" roared Bramble, determined to see no merit in
the exploit.

"Shut up and don't make a row," said Stephen, with a bland smile of
forgiveness.

Bramble promised his adversary to shut _him_ up, and after a little more
discussion and altercation and jubilation, the excitement subsided, and
another man went in. All this while the Fifth were in ecstasies. They
controlled their feelings, however, contenting themselves with clapping
Oliver on the back till he was nearly dead, and speculating on the
chances of beating their adversaries in a single innings.

But they had not won the match yet.

Winter was next man in, and he and Wren fell to work very speedily in a
decidedly business-like way. No big hits were made, but the score
crawled up by ones and twos steadily, and the longer they were at it the
steadier they played. Loud cheers announced the posting of thirty on
the signal-board, but still the score went on. Now it was a slip, now a
bye, now a quiet cut.

"Bravo! well played!" cried Raleigh and his men frequently. The
captain, by the way, was in excellent spir