Challis subsided.
"Look here," said Kennedy, "I'm going back to the house to see what's up. I'll be back as soon as I can. They must have mistaken the time or something after all."
He rushed back to the house, and flung open the door of the senior dayroom. It was empty.
Kennedy had expected to find his missing men huddled in a semicircle round the fire, waiting for some one to come and tell them that Blackburn's had taken the field, and that they could come out now without any fear of having to wait in the rain for the match to begin. This, he thought, would have been the unselfish policy of Kay's senior dayroom.
But to find nobody was extraordinary.
The thought occurred to him that the team might be changing in their dormitories. He ran upstairs. But all the dormitories were locked, as he might have known they would have been. Coming downstairs again he met his fag, Spencer.
Spencer replied to his inquiry that he had only just come in. He did not know where the team had got to. No, he had not seen any of them.
"Oh, yes, though," he added, as an afterthought, "I met Walton just now. He looked as if he was going down town."
Walton had once licked Spencer, and that vindictive youth thought that this might be a chance of getting back at him.
"Oh," said Kennedy, quietly, "Walton? Did you? Thanks."