Part 4 (1/2)

”I say,” gulped I, ”can't you let the water in again?” d.i.c.k had not considered this. His triumph had been letting the water out. However, he would see what could be done.

We went down into the shrubbery. About a foot of water lay on the ground, promising great fertility some day, but decidedly muddy-looking to-day.

”The thing will be to bung up the hole first,” said d.i.c.ky.

So we set to work to hammer up the end of the zinc pipe and stuff the aperture round with sods and stones. I even sacrificed my cap to the good cause.

The bell began to ring before we had well completed the task. ”That ought to keep any more from running out,” said d.i.c.ky. ”If we're lucky, the water will come in on its own hook at the other end.”

The theory was not exactly scientific, for scientific men do not believe in luck. Still, it was the best we could think of as we turned to go.

”Stop a bit,” said I, as we were leaving. ”May as well tidy up a bit in there before we go, eh?”

”In there” was the bed of the pond.

”It might look better,” said d.i.c.k, turning up his trousers. We decently interred the pistol in the mud, and raised a small heap of stones to keep it down; and then cautiously obliterating our footsteps in the mud, we made for _terra firma_, and scuttled back to school as fast as our legs would carry us.

Fortunately we entered un.o.bserved, and disenc.u.mbered ourselves of our muddy boots without attracting attention to their condition. Ten minutes later we were deep in our work in the big schoolroom.

Preparation that night was a solemn and gloomy ceremony. d.i.c.ky and I kept catching one another's eyes, and then glancing on to where the Dux, cool as a cuc.u.mber, sat turning over the leaves of his lexicon.

”He's got a cheek of his own, has Dux,” said I to myself.

”If I didn't know it was him,” signalled the ungrammatical d.i.c.ky across the room, ”I should never have believed it.”

”You may make as many faces as you like at young Brown,” glared Tempest at me, ”but if I catch you making any more at me, your mother will need some extra pocket-handkerchiefs.”

”Jones,” observed Dr Plummer aloud, ”a double _poena_ for aggravated inattention.”

All right. I was getting pretty full up with engagements for one day, and began to think bed-time would be rather a relief.

It came at last. In the dormitory Ramsbottom successfully interfered with conversation by patrolling the chamber until the boys were asleep.

No one doubted that he had been set to the task by the head master, and it augured rather badly for the resumption of the inquest next day.

However, even patrols go to sleep sometimes, and when I woke early next morning the usher had vanished to his own chamber. My first thought was not Hector, or the doctor, or my _poenas_, or the Dux, but the pond.

How, I wondered, was it getting on?

I routed up d.i.c.ky, and very quietly we dressed and slipped out. I knew that my early rising, if it were discovered, would probably be set down to my zeal for discharging impositions. But even they must wait now till we were sure about the pond.

For d.i.c.ky and I stood liable to as big a row as the a.s.sa.s.sin of Hector himself if anything went wrong with our experiment in engineering.

Luckily very few fellows haunted this particularly muddy corner of the grounds, and now that Hector was above a daily bath, there was little chance of Plummer himself discovering the remarkably low tide on his premises--still less of his poking about among the stones in the bed of the pool.

To our great relief we found that our dam at the foot was holding out bravely, and that comparatively little water was trickling through the bank into the shrubbery. The flow at the upper end, however, was distressingly small, and though a whole night had pa.s.sed we could still see the heap of stones under which the pistol was buried rising up from the shallow puddles around it, inviting investigation.

With astounding industry we worked away that morning, widening and deepening the little channel along which the rivulet made its way to the pond. And before we had done we had the satisfaction of seeing a fairly brisk inflow. We would fain have waited to see the fatal little island disappear below the surface. But the first bell was already an sounding when the water completed the circle, leaving it standing up more prominent than ever.

To our horror, at this precise moment Tempest strolled down.