The boys started back from the hole; their spades dropped from their hands. They saw about half of the lights extinguished, and amid the gloom they could perceive two figures rushing in mad haste away from the spot. A panic seized upon them. Before a panic the stoutest heart is as weak as water. Even the “B. O. W. C.” yielded to its influence. They shrank back, they retreated, they passed the line of flickering lights.
They fled!
Away, away! back from this terrible place, back towards the Academy. So fled the “B. O. W. C.”
First of all the fugitives was Solomon.
He had been nearly frightened out of his wits long before. These proceedings, half in joke, had been no joke to him. In spite of Bart’s assurances he had stood a trembling spectator, neglectful of his duty. The wind had blown out the lights one by one. Far from lighting them again, he had not even watched them. Every moment his fear had increased, until at last his limbs were almost paralyzed with terror. But at length, when that awful roar had arisen, his stupor was dispelled. An overmastering horror had seized him. He burst through the line of lights; he fled across the field; he ran, with his official robes streaming behind him, towards the Academy. Off went his hat: he heeded it not; he kept on his way. He reached the door of the house; he burst in. Up the stairs, and up another flight, and up another flight, and yet another—so he ran, until at last he reached his room. Arriving here, he banged to the door, and moved his bedstead against it, and heaped upon the bedstead his trunk, his chairs, his table, his looking-glass, his boots, his washstand, and every movable in the room. Then tearing off the bedclothes, he rolled himself up in them, and crouching down in a corner of the room, he lay there sleepless and trembling till daybreak.
Nor was Solomon the only fugitive. Scarcely had he bounded away in his headlong flight before Captain Corbet, with a cry of “O, my babby!” plunged after him, through the line of lights into the gloom that surrounded the ill-omened spot.
And there, over that track which saw the college gown of Solomon and the coat tails of Captain Corbet streaming in the wind, there, fast and far, in wild confusion, in headlong panic, fled the “B. O. W. C.” Who ran first, and who came last, matters not. I certainly will never tell. Enough is it for me to say that they RAN! Such is the power of Panic.
Great, however, as was that panic, it did not last long; and by the time they reached the edge of the playground on the crest of the hill, they all slackened their pace and stopped by mutual consent. There they stood in silence for some time, looking back at the place from which they had fled, and where now a few lights were still flickering.
And there was one great question in all their minds.
What was It?