The whole thing had taken scarcely an instant, but the English boat was three lengths ahead.
“Go it, Harvard!” cried the party on “The Siren.”
And how they went! Nothing like that spurt was ever known on the Thames before or since. The English were bound to win, but the crowd on the banks and in the boats forgot that as they cheered the plucky Harvard crew, whose superhuman effort was bringing their boat in barely a length behind the Cambridge craft.
As they passed the finish line Billy’s oar dropped from his limp hand and he fainted quietly into the bottom of the boat.
“Tell ’em I ended game,” he murmured to the little coxswain as he went off, and the coxswain himself came round in the evening to deliver the message and to assure Miss Babbie Hildreth that she had saved the honor of the college and that Billy would be on hand next day to thank her in person for keeping him from the “fluke” that every athlete dreads.
“Wasn’t it lucky we came?” said Betty Wales, climbing carefully down from her chair, while “The Siren” whistled madly and the crowd cheered for Cambridge’s victory, with a shout so deafening that it made all the noise which had come before seem like child’s play.
“Why couldn’t they have begun to pull a little sooner?” demanded Jasper J. Morton grimly. But the next minute he had caught the Englishman’s hand and was shaking it cordially. “Glad you’ve won, I’m sure,” he declared. “You ought to win on your own river. I’m glad our fellows gave yours a good race.”
Then he turned to John. “Let’s cheer for Cambridge,—a real American tiger.”
So John jumped on his chair again and led the cheer, and the English passengers responded for Harvard.
“There, Miss B. A.,” Mr. Morton turned to Betty, “is that your idea of looking on the bright side of things? All the same, John, I’m disgusted with that crew. Don’t tell your friend Benson, because he’s probably upset enough as it is, but I’m sure I can’t see what those boys came over here for if they couldn’t win their race.”