red guise, carrying his blazer on his
arm, entered and passed rapidly to his room. His countenance was too
forbidding for us to venture on our promised cheer. Something unusual
had happened. How we longed to know what it was!

I was thrust forward to follow him to his study, on the chance of
ascertaining, and was on the point of obeying, when a terrific sound
broke the silence of the night, and sent us back with white, rigid faces
in a heap into the faggery.

The sound proceeded from the direction of the gymnasium--first of all, a
dull, spasmodic thunder; then a fierce burst, followed almost
immediately by two tremendous reports which shook us to the soles of our
boots.

It reminded me of that fearful night at Dangerfield, when Tempest--

I clung on to Langrish, who was next to me, in mute despair, and
Langrish in turn embraced Trimble.

"Those," gasped the voice of Coxhead, "were the--ginger--beer--bottles.
What--shall--we--do?"

"Cut to bed sharp!" said the resolute though quavering voice of
Warminster, "and lie low."

"There won't be much of him left," whispered Trimble, "that's one good
thing," as we huddled off our clothes in the dark in the dormitory.

It was a gleam of comfort, certainly. Effigies of that kind, when they
do go off, leave few marks of identity behind them.

"Who let it off?" I ventured to ask. "No one knew about it except us."

"Look out! There's somebody coming!"

It was Mr Sharpe, who looked in, candle in hand, to see if any one had
been disturbed by the noise. But every one was sleeping peacefully,
blissfully unconscious that anything had happened.

"Narrow shave that," said Langrish, when the master had retired.

"I say," said Trimble. "I wonder if Tempest--"

Here he pulled up, but a muffled whistle of dismay took up his meaning.

"If he did, he must have found it out by himself. I never said a word
to him," said I.

"You were bound to make a mess of it," said Coxhead. "Why ever couldn't
you stick the thing where nobody could find it?"

"So I did; it was leaning up against the cellar wall; no one could
possibly get at it."

"Why not? the area door's open."

"No, it ain't. I locked it, and hid the key," said I, triumphantly,
"for fear of accident, under the scraper."

"Good old Sarah--that's lucky. But what about the grating in the
gymnasium floor? Couldn't you twig it through that?"

"Not unless you were looking for it. And if you could, you couldn't g