But Pip had no intention of giving away runs this time. He was proud of the confidence in him that had been shown; he was burning to retrieve the disgrace of his last performance; and, best of all, his glorious spell of batting had soothed his nerves and accustomed him to public appearances. He arranged his field quietly, sent a couple of balls down to the wicket-keeper, and even remembered to hand his cap to the umpire.
There was a hush all around the ground as he ran up to the wicket to deliver his first ball.
Things were certainly in a critical state. Of the hundred and twenty runs required to win, the Hittites had obtained forty-five for the loss of one wicket. If the present pair could add another thirty before being separated the match was practically safe. It was felt that Marsh was playing a desperate game in risking everything on the efforts of such a tyro as Pip; and when the Scrabbler took his stand and prepared to punish his presumptuous folly, the Hittites made ready to shout, and the Hivites to decamp to their house.
Pip's head was quite clear this time. His first two balls were to be as straight as possible and a good length; the third, if possible, was to be a fast yorker; the fourth, a good length ball; the fifth, slow and curly; and the last, Ham had told him, could be anything he pleased.
He delivered his first ball as per programme. The Scrabbler stepped well out to it, calculating, with his long reach, to be able to smother it comfortably. Much to his surprise his bat met with no resistance, for he had planted it quite two inches outside. The ball passed between his bat and his legs, whizzed past the leg stump, and was in the wicket-keeper's hands in a moment. The bails were whipped off, and the Scrabbler, who had dragged his foot right over the crease in his tremendous lunge forward, was out, stumped as neatly as possible.
A mighty shout went up as the Scrabbler retired. Two for forty-five.
Another batsman took his place. Pip delivered a ball almost identical with the first. This time the batsman, a stumpy person, not possessed of the Scrabbler's reach, played back, and succeeded in returning the ball to the bowler. Pleased with this success, and desiring to repeat it, he made the fatal mistake of deciding on his next stroke before the ball was bowled. Consequently he played back to a fast yorker, which, you will remember, came third on Pip's schedule. When he turned round his middle stump was lying on the ground, and the wicket-keeper was groping ecstatically for the bails.
Three for forty-five.
The next man was the heavy hitter of the eleven. It was his custom to smite every ball sent down, including the first, with uncompromising severity. On this occasion, however, he was sufficiently impressed with the solemnity of the occasion to endeavour to block the first ball, which was Pip's fourth,—a straight, good-length, orthodox delivery, rather on the short side. The ball rebounded from his rigid bat, and Point just failed to reach it. A little shudder ran round the ground. The slogger, observing his escape, came to the conclusion that he might as well be outed for a slogger as a poker, and lashed out widely at ball number five, which was a slow and curly one. Now, since Pip, who felt the real bowling instinct, which tells a man what the batsman expects (and prompts him to bowl something entirely different), surging up hotter and stronger in his brain every moment, bowled when still a good two yards behind the crease, the lash-out came much too soon, and the slogger's bat was waving wildly in the air what time his bails were being disturbed by a beautiful curly ball which bumped, very very gently, into his off-stump.
Four for forty-five.