"Mind you don't get hurt, Percy!" piped an impudent treble, and mid-on blushed to the roots of his hair.
"The scugs!" muttered Billy savagely. He was feeling just about fed-up with the whole business, and the total lack of sportsmanship on the part of the crowd annoyed him intensely. At the same time, he showed no signs, but merely put all he knew into his bowling.
He sent along a fine delivery with his very next ball—and almost fainted with astonishment. The slogger, Swan, had almost missed the ball—and it was tipped fairly into the hands of Screw at short-leg. Screw held the ball and remained staring at it as if hypnotized. Swan opened his mouth, shut it abruptly, and stalked off the field.
"Good man!" yelled Martin. The crowd was silent, for they had been enjoying the slogging of Swan, and this fluke catch was not a satisfying way of getting a man out.
As for Billy, his determination was doubled. He got the next man, to his own intense surprise, before he was really set; and the score was beginning to assume a reasonable aspect—four men for thirty-nine runs.
Martin's hopes of victory began to soar, and the amazing Billy, in successive overs, whipped over two wickets for eight runs.
"Where on earth have you been living, all this time," demanded Martin of Billy, during a change-over. "Talk about hiding your giddy light under a bushel! Demon bowler, eh? Why, you'd give Spofforth fits! Keep it up, old chap, and I'll stand you the best feed you ever clapped eyes on."
Billy grinned. "This is my day out," he said in reply. As a matter of fact, he had become worked up by the treatment of the School by the onlookers, and the desperate state of the match. It was his way, in matters of pressing importance, to rise to the occasion; and no one could gain-say that he was doing so now. Martin put him on again.
When Windsor went out, in their second innings, for a mere fifty-two runs, the spectators could hardly credit their eyes. Why, they had expected a rattling fine inning from the first five men, and then a "declaration." This was most unusual! After all, there might be something left in the School side yet—it would all depend upon how they would bat.
It was early evident that the school were out to win the match by dogged run-getting. Martin and Silver played a careful partnership, taking no chances, until Silver obtained the confidence which he had so disastrously lacked in the first innings.