ad seen Percival
and Wyndham together near the school. He had tried to put that from him,
especially since the heroism Percival had shown on the river. But now it
all came back with a rush. There was not the slightest doubt that
Percival and Wyndham were on terms of friendship. No one who had
witnessed the scene that he and Plunger had witnessed could question it.
What did it mean? There was something behind it all.

"Yes, I noticed it, Freddy," he slowly answered. "It puzzles me, and I
don't know what to make of it." Then looking up quickly, as though a
sudden suspicion had come to him, he blurted out: "I say, is it possible
that--that----No, I can't say it--it's too horrid."

"Out with it. There's no one to hear you but me. Remember, we're both in
the same boat."

"No one to hear me but you," said Harry, looking quickly round. "And I
shouldn't like anybody to hear but you; it's a horrid suspicion that
came into my mind just now. There must be something between Percival and
Wyndham, that's certain. I've tried not to believe it; but it's no use
trying to shut our eyes to facts. Can it be that Percival's plotting
against his own school, can it be that he is betraying us to the
enemy--those beastly Beetles?"

"Funny! Just the same thing's been running through my mind. Can it be
that he's betraying us to the enemy, and can it be"--here Plunger's
voice dropped to a whisper, as though he feared the very hedges might
overhear him--"that it was he who hauled down the school flag and handed
it over to the Beetles?"

"No, no; I can't believe that," cried Harry, clasping his hands over his
face, as though to blot out the suspicion.

"And I've been trying not to believe it, but what else are you to make
of it? A Beetle couldn't have got to the turret and taken the flag off
his own bat. There must have been some one helping him who knew all
about the school. If it wasn't Percival, who was it? What are we to
think after what we've seen?"

So it came about that while Percival had been doing his best to trace
out where the school flag had gone, so as to return it to its old place
of honour on the turret, the suspicion came into the minds of these two
boys that he was betraying the school.

Even at the moment that this suspicion was born, Paul was sitting by the
bedside of Hibbert, with the boy's hand in his. Hibbert had been
talking, but the tired eyes, which shone out so brightly from the wan
face, had begun to close. Yet t