et, his
presence there might be detected at any moment. Any one passing along
the grounds might chance to glance up.

So, lying flat on the roof, he took a careful survey of the scene below.
An exclamation of surprise escaped his lips; he could not help it. He
felt like Cortez, the famous discoverer, when, with an eagle eye, he
gazed for the first time on the Pacific from a peak in Darien. The
Gargoyles in the playing-fields looked like so many pigmies darting
between the goal-posts. Beyond them stretched the roadway leading to the
common; to the left he could plainly see the glint of the sun on the
river. He little dreamt what was happening there, even as he gazed.

Turning in another direction, there was an almost uninterrupted expanse
of country till the distance was broken by the spire of St. Bede's
rising from a background of hills. He never imagined that it would be
possible to see St. Bede's from Garside. He had thought the distance too
great, but now the two schools, seen from that vantage ground, seemed
ridiculously near.

Crick remained for some time lost in the view; then a clock chiming the
quarter recalled him to his purpose. He glanced again in the direction
of the playing-fields. There was nothing to fear in that direction. The
Gargoyles were too much occupied in their game to pay any attention to
the roof. Crick drew himself nearer to the flagstaff.

Slightly raising himself from his position on the roof, he lifted it
from its socket, and, possessed of the prize for which he had risked so
much, drew it quickly beneath the trap-door.

[Illustration: "SLIGHTLY RAISING HIMSELF FROM HIS POSITION ON THE ROOF,
CRICK LIFTED THE FLAGSTAFF FROM ITS SOCKET, AND DREW IT QUICKLY BENEATH
THE TRAP-DOOR."]

"Got it!" he cried, with a thrill of joy, as he glanced at the old,
discoloured flag which had seen so much service--"got it!"

Quickly rolling it round the staff, he next drew from under his sweater
a cover of American cloth, which he wound in turn round the flag and
staff, till nothing could be seen of them. No one could have told what
the cloth concealed. It looked like a bundle of fishing-rods.

Descending the stairs as cautiously as he had ascended them, he once
more reached the door leading from the turret stairs.

"Now for it," he thought, bracing himself up.

He had only to get outside the grounds and reach the place where Mellor
was awaiting him. He crept round the side wall, and was just about t