ing. But how was he to do this? It suddenly occurred to him that
it was a delicate position that he was in. It was not often that he
was troubled by an inconvenient modesty, but this happened now. Grant
was a fellow he hardly knew, and a school prefect to boot. Could he go
up to him and explain that he, Jackson, did not consider him competent
to bat in this crisis? Would not this get about and be accounted to
him for side? He had made forty, but even so....

Fortunately Grant solved the problem on his own account. He came up to
Mike and spoke with an earnestness born of nerves. "For goodness
sake," he whispered, "collar the bowling all you know, or we're done.
I shall get outed first ball."

"All right," said Mike, and set his teeth. Forty to win! A large
order. But it was going to be done. His whole existence seemed to
concentrate itself on those forty runs.

The fast bowler, who was the last of several changes that had been
tried at the other end, was well-meaning but erratic. The wicket was
almost true again now, and it was possible to take liberties.

Mike took them.

A distant clapping from the pavilion, taken up a moment later all
round the ground, and echoed by the Ripton fieldsmen, announced that
he had reached his fifty.

The last ball of the over he mishit. It rolled in the direction of
third man.

"Come on," shouted Grant.

Mike and the ball arrived at the opposite wicket almost
simultaneously. Another fraction of a second, and he would have been
run out.

[Illustration: MIKE AND THE BALL ARRIVED ALMOST SIMULTANEOUSLY]

The last balls of the next two overs provided repetitions of this
performance. But each time luck was with him, and his bat was across
the crease before the bails were off. The telegraph-board showed a
hundred and fifty.

The next over was doubly sensational. The original medium-paced bowler
had gone on again in place of the fast man, and for the first five
balls he could not find his length. During those five balls Mike
raised the score to a hundred and sixty.

But the sixth was of a different kind. Faster than the rest and of a
perfect length, it all but got through Mike's defence. As it was, he
stopped it. But he did not score. The umpire called "Over!" and there
was Grant at the batting end, with de Freece smiling pleasantly as he
walked back to begin his run with the comfortable reflection that at
last he had got somebody except Mike to bowl at.

That over was an experie