broke upon my
reverie a sullen youth who said:

"Well, Ray, we haven't won it after all."

There was a hitch in my understanding, and I asked:

"What d'you mean?"

"You were disqualified."

"I!" It was almost a hair-whitening shock. "I! What? Why? What for?"

"They say you dived before Johnson touched the rope. Nobody believes
you did."

So then; I had _lost_ the cup for Bramhall. The lie! Too old to vent
suffering in tears, I showed it in a panting chest, a trembling lip,
and a dry, wide-eyed stare at my informant. Backed by a disorder
outside, he repeated: "Nobody believes you did."

All happiness died out of my ken. Conscious only of aching limbs, a
fluttering heart, uneven breath, and a bursting head, I cried:

"I didn't. I didn't. Who said so?"

"Fillet--Carpet Slippers."

"The liar! The liar!" I muttered; and, with a sudden attack of
something like cramp down my left side, I fell into a sitting
position, and thence into a huddled and fainting heap upon the
floor.

CHAPTER X

WATERLOO CONTINUES: THE CHARGE AT THE END OF THE DAY

Sec.1

While I was recovering there fell the first thunderdrops of mutiny.
A youth at the back of the gallery, on intercepting the flying
message that Fillet had demanded my disqualification and Jerry
Brisket had ended by supporting him, roared out a threatening
"_No!_" Maybe, had he not done so, there would never have been the
great Bramhall riot. But many other boys, catching the contagion of
his defiance, cried out "_No!_" The crowd, recently so excited, was
easily flushed by the new turn of events, and shouted in unison
"_No!_" Isolated voices called out "Cheat!" "Liar!" Dr. Chapman, as
tactless as he was kindly, declared to those about him that Fillet's
judgment was at fault, and thus helped to increase the uproar. The
disaffection spread to the Erasmus men, who said openly: "We don't
want the beastly cup. Bramhall won it fair and square."

And then came the report that I, on receiving the news, had fainted.
This, by provoking deeper sympathy with the hero and greater
execration of the villain, acted like paraffin oil on the flames.
Before the masters realised that anything more than disappointment
was abroad, rebellion looked them in the face.

Salome saw it and knew that, if his short but brilliant record as
headmaster was not to be abruptly destroyed, he must rise to prompt
and statesmanlike action. His first step was to summon all the
prefects in th