es opened wide upon me; and I
hesitated weakly, to be duly lost.

"Then that's settled," said Lord Amersteth, with the slightest
suspicion of grimness. "It's to be a little week, you know, when my
son comes of age. We play the Free Foresters, the Dorsetshire
Gentlemen, and probably some local lot as well. But Mr. Raffles will
tell you all about it, and Crowley shall write. Another wicket! By
Jove, they're all out! Then I rely on you both." And, with a little
nod, Lord Amersteth rose and sidled to the gangway.

Raffles rose also, but I caught the sleeve of his blazer.

"What are you thinking of?" I whispered savagely. "I was nowhere near
the eleven. I'm no sort of cricketer. I shall have to get out of
this!"

"Not you," he whispered back. "You needn't play, but come you must.
If you wait for me after half-past six I'll tell you why."

But I could guess the reason; and I am ashamed to say that it revolted
me much less than did the notion of making a public fool of myself on a
cricket-field. My gorge rose at this as it no longer rose at crime,
and it was in no tranquil humor that I strolled about the ground while
Raffles disappeared in the pavilion. Nor was my annoyance lessened by
a little meeting I witnessed between young Crowley and his father, who
shrugged as he stopped and stooped to convey some information which
made the young man look a little blank. It may have been pure
self-consciousness on my part, but I could have sworn that the trouble
was their inability to secure the great Raffles without his
insignificant friend.

Then the bell rang, and I climbed to the top of the pavilion to watch
Raffles bowl. No subtleties are lost up there; and if ever a bowler
was full of them, it was A. J. Raffles on this day, as, indeed, all the
cricket world remembers. One had not to be a cricketer oneself to
appreciate his perfect command of pitch and break, his beautifully easy
action, which never varied with the varying pace, his great ball on the
leg-stump--his dropping head-ball--in a word, the infinite ingenuity of
that versatile attack. It was no mere exhibition of athletic prowess,
it was an intellectual treat, and one with a special significance in my
eyes. I saw the "affinity between the two things," saw it in that
afternoon's tireless warfare against the flower of professional
cricket. It was not that Raffles took many wickets for few runs; he
was too fine a bowler to mind being hit; and time was s