Stop! Surely he did hear a faint sound—a very faint sound! He felt that he must go and see; a strange, uneasy feeling had possessed him; a strange presentiment that all was not right.
He crept down the passage, and turned towards the Fifth-Form dormitory, and a breath of cold air met him. The window was open, and the top of a ladder could be seen—and the door of the dormitory was open also!
With cautious, stealthy steps he crept on, pausing once when the boards creaked beneath his weight. There was something eerie in being here alone at midnight; it was worse than being out alone on the plains.
He reached the door, and peered into the dormitory with its long row of sleeping boys there. There was nothing here in the shape of a lark going on. All was still and silent.
There was his enemy lying asleep, his handsome face just catching a glimmer of moonlight which found its way through the blind; and as Ralph looked he saw a strange apparition—a man slowly appeared, rising at the side of the bed! A man with pillow in his hands, which he was about to press down upon that sleeping boy! A man going to murder Horace Elgert!
Like a flash the truth burst upon the watching boy, and, with a loud cry, he threw the door wide open and rushed into the dormitory.