But not for long. Once more the dull, dragging sound, interrupted by the spasmodic and fruitless leaps!

A shudder went round the dormitory at the sound. They knew as well as I did what it meant.

"It's the ghost!" faltered Sparrow's trembling voice; and no one contradicted him. Fergus himself, like one suddenly confronted with a spirit of his own raising, seemed the most terrified of the lot, and I could hear him gasping as he sat petrified in his bed.

"Can't some one strike a light?" Lamb said presently.

All very well, but the matches were on the table, and to secure them one would have to get out of bed. No one seemed quite inclined for that.

As we lay endeavouring to screw up our courage to the necessary pitch, the sound once more recommenced, with a violent motion towards the edge of the roof. The moon at the same moment broke out from behind the clouds and shot its pale light in at the big windows. There was a momentary pause above us, and then, casting a sudden shadow across the dormitory floor, a dim white figure, as of a body without limbs, floated down outside the window. The moon once more was obscured, and we were left motionless and horrified in utter silence and darkness! What would come next?

How long we might have remained in suspense I can't say, had not Lamb and another fellow, by a combined effort of heroism, dashed arm in arm from bed and secured the matches. They were in the act of striking a light (one match had broken, and another had had no head)--they were in the act of striking a light when Lamb, who was close to the window, suddenly exclaimed--"Look!"

There was such terror in his tone that we knew only too well what he had seen. But where!

"Where?" I managed to gasp.

"There, down in the quad," he replied, pointing out of the window, but looking another way.

Curiosity is sometimes greater than fear, and for all my terror I could not resist the impulse to steal up to the window and look out. And others did the same.

It was as Lamb had said. There in the quadrangle below, moving restlessly to and fro, and swaying itself upward, as if in supplication, was the white form, erect but helpless. For a long time we gazed without a word. At last, one more hardy than the rest said--"What can it be?"

What a question! What could it be but--Bubbles! Still, when the question was once asked, it did occur to one or two of us that possibly we might have jumped to a conclusion too hastily. It's wonderful how hardy a fellow will get when he's got twenty fellows cl.u.s.tering round him.

"He's alive, anyhow," said one. "Call out to him, some one," suggested another. "You're nearest the window, Fraser," said another. Fraser was vice-captain of the second fifteen, and always touchy whenever his pluck was called in question.

"I'm not afraid," he said, in a voice which was hardly quite steady.

And as he spoke he threw up the window, and called out hurriedly, and in rather deferential tones--"Who are you down there?"

I don't suppose Fraser ever did a pluckier thing than ask that question.

We listened, all ears, for the reply. But none came. Only a faint moan, as the apparition swayed uneasily towards us, and even seemed to try to raise itself in our direction; but never a word we heard, and we closed the window again as much in the dark as to its ident.i.ty as ever.

What could we do? We couldn't go to bed with Bubbles's or anybody's ghost wandering about in the quadrangle below us, that was evident. But how were we to solve the mystery, unless indeed--

It was a terrible alternative, but the only one. We thought of it a good bit before any one proposed it. At last Fraser himself said--

"Who's game to come down into the quad?"

Fraser was on his mettle, or he would never have been so mad. At first a dead silence was the only answer to his challenge. Then Lamb said--

"I don't mind."

If he didn't mind, why should he nearly choke saying so? However, he broke the ice, and others followed. I considered myself as good a man as Lamb any day (it was only my own opinion), and I wasn't going to be outdone by him now. So I volunteered. And one or two others who considered themselves as good as I volunteered too, until the forlorn hope numbered a dozen.

"Come along," said Fraser, who had armed himself with a lighted candle and led the way.

I think those who stayed behind felt a little dismayed when the last of us glided from the door and left them behind.

Still, as far as happiness of mind was concerned, they would not have gained much had they been of our party. For we descended the staircase in rather depressed spirits, starting at every creak, and--some of us-- wishing twenty times we were safe back in the dormitory. But there was no drawing back now.

What a noise the bars of the big door made as we unfastened them, and what an ominous shriek the lock gave as we turned the key! Our one hope was that the ghost would have taken fright and vanished before we reached the quadrangle. But no! As we stepped out into the damp breezy night the first thing that met our eyes was the distant, restless figure of Bubbles!

By one consent we halted, and as we did so a gust of wind extinguished our leader's candle! What was to be done? I glanced up, and saw the lights twinkling at the far distant dormitory window. Oh, whatever possessed me to come on this wild errand!

"Now then, you fellows!" It was Fraser's voice, and more like himself too. "Now then, stick all together and--"

"Better get a light first," suggested some one. "Will you run back to the dormitory and get the matches?" asked our leader.

Nothing more was said about the light.

We advanced a few yards, and then halted again.

"Better speak to him, I think," said Lamb.

"All right," said Fraser. "Now then, who are you? What's your name there?"

His voice sounded loud and startling in the night air; but it was wasted breath. Never a word spoke Bubbles, but moaned as he struggled restlessly on the ground where he lay.

Fraser's spirits were rising every moment. "Oh, hang it!" he exclaimed.

"I don't believe it's a ghost at all."

So saying, he made a further advance to within a few yards of the apparition.

If it wasn't a ghost, it was the most unearthly thing in the dark I ever saw as it lay there. We were still too far off to see it clearly, but it looked like some bloated creature without legs trying its hardest to rise on the feet that were not there.

"Do you hear?" shouted Fraser once more. "Why can't you speak and tell us who you are?"

The creature gave a long sigh by way of answer, but no more.

Fraser advanced another step, and we were preparing to follow, when the ghost slowly rose on end and made a sudden bound towards him!

In an instant we were back in the house, rushing pellmell up the stairs, and looking neither this way nor that till we were safe back in the dormitory with our companions.

We pa.s.sed the remainder of that night dressed, and with candles burning, and it was not till morning broke that we dared once more look out of the window.

And then we discovered the mystery of Bubbles's ghost.

A small half-exhausted balloon, about five feet high, lay on the gra.s.s below, with enough gas in it still to toss about restlessly in the breeze, and now and then even to rise on end and drag its little car a few inches.

Where it came from and who it belonged to we never discovered. Probably some toy balloon let up by Christmas Eve revellers, who little thought it would alight on the roof of Jolliffe's, and after flopping about there for some minutes would finally tumble into the court below, and there act the part of Bubbles to a handful of scared schoolboys.

However, all's well that ends well, and among the many amus.e.m.e.nts which made that day a Merry Christmas to us all there was none over which we laughed more than "Bubbles's Ghost."

CHAPTER THREE.

Sub-Chapter I.