"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.

"Hullo! what are you two after? Fishing? One way to catch them, letting all the water out."

"It was an experiment," said d.i.c.ky, who, like myself, was very pale as he looked first at the Dux, then at the guilty hillock in the pond.

"So it seems. In other words, you're making a jolly mess, and are enjoying yourselves. I hope you'll enjoy it equally, both of you, when Plummer sees what you've done."

"Shall you tell him?" I asked, somewhat breathlessly. The Dux laughed scornfully.

"You deserve a hiding for asking such a thing. Come here! Jump out on to that little island there, and stay there till I tell you."

"Oh, Dux, please not," said I, in a tone of terror, which was quite out of proportion to the penalty. The pistol was only two inches below the surface!

"Do you hear? Look sharp, or I'll chuck you there."

That might be worse. It might hurt me and cut up the soil. So I jumped gingerly out, and stood poised with a foot in the water on either side, dreading at any moment to see the stones slip and the tell-tale gleam of the buried weapon.

"If you don't stand properly," said the Dux, "I'll make you sit down.

Come along, young Brown, it's time we went up to school."

"How long am I to stay, please?" I inquired.

"Till you're in water up to the knees," said the Dux, as he turned away, with the faithless d.i.c.ky beside him.

Up to the knees! I stood loyally for five minutes, during which the water gained about an eighth of an inch up my ankles. Then the second bell rang, and things became desperate.

Accordingly I knelt in the water until I could confidently a.s.sert that I was wet, very wet indeed, up to the knees; which done, I posted as fast as my ill-used legs would carry me to morning school.

CHAPTER THREE.

"WHEN SHALL WE THREE MEET AGAIN?"

Once more Dr Plummer reserved himself for the afternoon. Perhaps it was the haunting tyranny of the defunct Hector; perhaps it was pique at being baffled, so far, in finding the culprit; whatever may have been the reason, he was in an ominously uncompromising mood when at last he returned to the fateful question.

"Come up, the first boy," said he abruptly.

The Dux was evidently getting tired of all this business (and no wonder, it seemed to me), and obeyed the summons not in the best of humours.

"Tempest," said the doctor, "I repeat my question of yesterday. Do you know anything whatever of this matter?"

"No, sir--I said so," replied the Dux, in a clear voice.

Dr Plummer scowled somewhat at this tart reply. He rather liked his head boy, and was not prepared to find him, of all others, recalcitrant.

"I do not ask what you said, sir; I ask what you say," said he.

"I said No. I'm not a liar," replied the Dux rather fiercely.