but Henderson, looking up from his
wash-hand basin, replied--"And understand _you_, Harpour, that if you
bully him any more, I'll tell the head of the school."

Harpour made a spring at Henderson to thrash him for these words, but
again the burly Cradock interposed by saying, good-humouredly, as he put
himself in Harpour's way, "There, stop squabbling, for goodness' sake,
you two, and let's have a little peace. Flip, you shut up."

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

TO THE RESCUE.

Alas! how easily things go wrong!

And there follows a mist and a weeping rain,
And life is _never_ the same again!

George Macdonald, _Phantastes_.

Eden felt an immeasurable delight when Walter was allowed to come back
to the dormitory, and now he thought himself happy in a perfect security
from further torment.

But the two tyrants had other views. Harpour, at once passionate and
dogged, was not likely to forget that he had been thwarted and defied;
and if he had been so inclined, Jones would have not allowed him to do
so, but kept egging him on to show his contempt for the younger and
weaker boys who had tried to check his bullying propensities. On the
last occasion when he had ordered Eden to go to Dan's, Eden had taken
Walter's advice, and firmly refused to go. Harpour did not think it
safe to compel him, but he threw out some significant threats, which
filled the little boy with vague alarm and weighed heavily on his
spirits. He did not tell any one of these threats, hoping that they
would end in nothing, and, in case of any emergency, trusting implicitly
on Walter for a generous and efficient protection.

But the threats did _not_ end in nothing.

One night, after the others had fallen asleep, Eden, feeling quite free
from all anxiety, was sleeping more soundly and sweetly than he had done
for a fortnight, when a blaze of light, flashing suddenly upon his eyes,
made him start up in his bed. Harpour and Jones were taking this
opportunity to fulfil their threat of frightening him. At the foot of
his bed stood a figure in white, with a hideous, deformed head, blotched
with scarlet; bending over him was another white figure, with an
enormous black face, holding over its head a shining hand.

In an instant the boy fell back, pale as death, uttering a shriek so
shrill and terrible, so full of wildness and horror, that every other
boy in the dormitory sprang up, alarmed and wide awake.

Walter and Henderson leaped out of