"What a term this has been," murmured Jack, "all flittings out and in, night and day. Rummy, isn't it?"
They entered the school by an accessible window, and made their way along the silent corridors. As they passed through, Fane gripped Jack's arm tightly.
"Jack!" he said. "What's that?"
In a moment his question had answered itself. "That" was the shadowy figure of a boy in his pyjamas; and as he passed a moonlit window they saw that it was Billy Faraday. They saw also, that he was sleep-walking, and that he carried the Black Star in his hand ... then out of the shadows a dark figure leapt upon the sleeping boy and flung him to the ground.
[CHAPTER XIII]
A MYSTERY UNRAVELLED
Such was the rapid succession of events that Fane and Jack Symonds remained for a few seconds rooted to the spot, by sheer stupefaction and surprise. That Billy should thus be walking in his sleep, and bearing the lost Star in his hands, was strange enough, but that he should be attacked before their very eyes was quite astounding. They might well have been pardoned for a moment of inaction. Then the tension snapped. "Come on!" said Jack quietly. "It's that beast Daw!"
In their stockinged feet the two boys darted along the corridor. Billy Faraday had come back to the waking world with a startled cry, and seemed quite incapable of movement, while Doctor Daw, in his black suit, bent over him like a carrion crow, and struggled to wrest the Star from the boy's grasp.
He succeeded at last, and with a low cry of triumph, turned to escape. At that moment he was tackled madly by a bunched-up body that he might, given the requisite time, have recognized as Fane's. His legs were whisked from beneath him, and he sat down with an agonizing thump, while Jack Symonds collapsed upon him with all his heavy weight. The Black Star escaped from his fingers, and slithered along the tiled floor, where the now awakened Billy secured it eagerly.