"And to think that I crawled to them--crawled, with the flag of the old school looking on. It's nothing to you--you're only a fresher from Gaffer Quelch's; but to me, Plunger, it's--it's----" Not being able to find a word strong enough to express his meaning, Plunger suddenly turned on Harry again. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Moncrief minor, letting me make such an a.s.s of myself."

"How could I help it, Freddy. They made an a.s.s of me too."

"There you go again, always poking your wretched self in. What does it matter to you? You don't count at Garside. I do--that's the difference.

I wish you wouldn't look at these things from such a selfish point of view. You're always thinking of yourself--a miserable fresher, as I've said, from Gaffer Quelch's. If it ever gets about the school that I've been made a Beetle under the Garside flag, what will the fellows think of it? I shall never hear the last of it. I shall be roasted all round."

"And serve you right, too!" cried Harry, losing his temper. "A jolly good roasting will do you good. It'll take some of the bounce out of you. If it hadn't been for you, we shouldn't have got into this mess."

"What do you mean?" demanded Plunger hotly.

"It was all through playing the spy on Percival. If it hadn't been for following him, those Beetles wouldn't have got hold of us."

"Come, that's good. Your cheek's superb. That's the only thing you seem to have brought with you from Gaffer Quelch's. Who was it suggested we should follow Percival? Was it me, I should like to know, or one of the little prigs from Gaffer Quelch's?"

Harry could not immediately respond. He had forgotten for the moment that the suggestion to follow Percival had come from him. But after a moment's reflection he answered lamely:

"Yes; but it was you who caught sight of Percival as he was on the road to St. Bede's and put the suggestion in my head."

"Well, of all the bosh----Oh, shut up, or put on a strait-waistcoat.

You're getting dangerous," said Plunger crushingly, seeing that he had "scored."

Harry, indignant with himself, Plunger, and all the world, went on ahead. But after a bit Plunger caught up to him.

"You needn't get into a wax because I set you right just now. I flatter myself there aren't many chaps can score over me when I choose to set about them. It's not your fault that you've got too much of Gaffer Quelch's seminary for boys and girls about you. I had it for the first term at Garside, but I soon grew out of it. And you'll grow out of it, too. Fact is, Harry, neither of us is to blame for falling into the hands of the Philistines--Beetles, I mean. Let's put the blame on the right shoulders."

"And the right shoulders are----"

"Percival. It was through following him we fell into that beastly trap, and it seems to me--though I don't like to say it--that Percival has a good deal to answer for. What was he doing at St. Bede's? What was he doing with that fellow, Wyndham, who knocked about your cousin so unmercifully at the sand-pits? Did you notice what good terms they were on--Wyndham with his arm tucked through Percival's."

Harry had seen it all, and as Plunger was speaking he recalled that other scene he had striven so hard to forget--when he had seen Percival and Wyndham together near the school. He had tried to put that from him, especially since the heroism Percival had shown on the river. But now it all came back with a rush. There was not the slightest doubt that Percival and Wyndham were on terms of friendship. No one who had witnessed the scene that he and Plunger had witnessed could question it.

What did it mean? There was something behind it all.

"Yes, I noticed it, Freddy," he slowly answered. "It puzzles me, and I don't know what to make of it." Then looking up quickly, as though a sudden suspicion had come to him, he blurted out: "I say, is it possible that--that----No, I can't say it--it's too horrid."

"Out with it. There's no one to hear you but me. Remember, we're both in the same boat."

"No one to hear me but you," said Harry, looking quickly round. "And I shouldn't like anybody to hear but you; it's a horrid suspicion that came into my mind just now. There must be something between Percival and Wyndham, that's certain. I've tried not to believe it; but it's no use trying to shut our eyes to facts. Can it be that Percival's plotting against his own school, can it be that he is betraying us to the enemy--those beastly Beetles?"

"Funny! Just the same thing's been running through my mind. Can it be that he's betraying us to the enemy, and can it be"--here Plunger's voice dropped to a whisper, as though he feared the very hedges might overhear him--"that it was he who hauled down the school flag and handed it over to the Beetles?"

"No, no; I can't believe that," cried Harry, clasping his hands over his face, as though to blot out the suspicion.

"And I've been trying not to believe it, but what else are you to make of it? A Beetle couldn't have got to the turret and taken the flag off his own bat. There must have been some one helping him who knew all about the school. If it wasn't Percival, who was it? What are we to think after what we've seen?"

So it came about that while Percival had been doing his best to trace out where the school flag had gone, so as to return it to its old place of honour on the turret, the suspicion came into the minds of these two boys that he was betraying the school.

Even at the moment that this suspicion was born, Paul was sitting by the bedside of Hibbert, with the boy's hand in his. Hibbert had been talking, but the tired eyes, which shone out so brightly from the wan face, had begun to close. Yet the hand still held fast to Paul's. And as Paul looked down lovingly on the face, he murmured to himself the words he had spoken to Wyndham that afternoon--"The link between us kept me strong when all Garside was against me."

And Paul had need of strength, for the battle had not yet ended.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

A REMARKABLE DISCOVERY

The improvement in the school's att.i.tude to Paul did not last long. The Garsiders who had come over to him with a swing, for some reason swung back with the same alacrity. The juniors who had cheered him to the echo in the dormitory now pa.s.sed him without a word.

Fortunately, Paul's mind was too much occupied just then with other matters to take much notice of this change. First and foremost in his thoughts was Hibbert. Would he pull through? The progress he made was very slow--if, indeed, it could be called progress. One day he seemed stronger, the next found him as weak as before. A curious thing had happened on the afternoon Paul returned to the school after his interview with Wyndham. Mr. Weevil had sent for him to his room. Paul thought that it was to reprimand him for something or other. He was agreeably surprised, therefore, when the master motioned him to a chair, and in a kindly voice, altogether unlike his "school voice," bade him sit down.

"I understand that you've visited Hibbert once or twice," he began, regarding Paul through his half-closed eyes.

"Now it's coming," thought Paul. "He's going to forbid me visiting Hibbert." Then, aloud: "Yes, sir. I hope you've no objection."

"I did object at first to visitors of any kind, because I thought it would do the lad more harm than good. But I think the objection may be withdrawn as far as you're concerned."

Paul could scarcely believe his ears. Had he heard Mr. Weevil aright?

"He seems to look forward eagerly to your visits, more than to the visits of anybody"--a sigh, so slight as to be almost imperceptible, escaped the master's lips. "It would be cruel to debar the poor little fellow from any pleasure we can give him. Therefore, Percival, I hope you will understand that you are quite at liberty to visit him when you feel inclined."

"It is very kind of you, sir, and I am deeply grateful."

"You will be careful, of course, not to make your visits too long, or not to unduly excite him."

"Oh, yes, sir; I'll be careful of that."

Paul rose to go, thinking the interview at an end. As he did so, the master placed a hand upon his shoulder.

"You have been very good to the boy--G.o.d will reward you! The fear sometimes oppresses me that he will not get over this illness."

The half closed eyes were blinking in a curious fashion. Indeed, Paul saw what was suspiciously like a tear slowly making its way down the cheek of the master. His emotion was no longer a mystery to Paul.

Hibbert's revelation had thrown a light upon it. He now knew that the man whom he had regarded as without emotion--as one wrapped up completely in his equations and scientific formulae--had yet a deeply human side. Hibbert was the son of his dead sister, and he loved him--loved him with a love that was a hundred times greater than that which the boy's own father had ever bestowed on him. And Paul learnt a lesson in that brief interview which he never forgot--that lying deep down in the hearts of most men, sometimes overladen by rust, sometimes in the midst of decay, may frequently be found a vein of purest gold.

"Don't say that, sir. He was looking better the last time I saw him. He will pull round as soon as he can get out a bit."

"I hope your words will come true, Percival; but he's so frail. If he were only strong like you--but there, it's useless talking. It must be as G.o.d wills." Then his voice changed to its old frigid tone.

"You can go, sir."

Thus abruptly dismissed, Paul went out.

"Weevil's a puzzle," he said to himself. "I'm as far off knowing him as ever I was; but there seems to be some warm blood in him, and that's something. I thought he was all pothooks and hangers at one time; but he can't be as bad as that. That shows you shouldn't go by appearances.

He's not half as black as I painted him."

Paul was very pleased that he could now visit Hibbert without restriction, and that same night he visited him, much to the boy's joy, and sat by his bed, as we have seen, till he slept.

Thus it was Paul took little heed of the school's att.i.tude towards him for the next few days. Then an incident happened which was to absorb his attention still more. Thinking of Mr. Weevil, and his recent interview, his mind went naturally back to that evening when, devoured with curiosity, he had followed him to Cranstead Common. The more he thought of it, the more he wondered what could have become of him on that night he had so strangely disappeared from view before his very eyes. The ground had not swallowed him up, for he had returned to school that same night. What, then, was the meaning of it?