Miss Carter was in a bad temper. She threw the skin irritably at William through the window.
“Oh, change where you like,” she snapped, “if you’ll be back here in five minutes.”
William took the skin eagerly.
“Oh, yes, I will,” he promised.
Then he rolled up the skin and stuffed it under his arm. It instantly changed into a bale of precious but vague contraband material.
Glancing sternly round for soldiers, William crept cautiously and silently down to his cave. There he drew a sigh of relief, placed his gun in a corner and changed into the skin. Once clad in the skin, his ordinary clothes became the precious but vague contraband material. He crept to the entrance, glanced furtively around, then wrapped his clothes into a bundle and looked around for some place of concealment. On the ground at the further end of the cave was a large piece of paper in which he and Ginger had once brought their lunch.
Still with many furtive glances around, he wrapped up his clothes and concealed the bundle on a shelf of rock in the corner of the cave. Then he took up his gun, shot two soldiers who were just creeping towards the entrance of the cave, walked to the doorway, shot again at a crowd of soldiers who fled in panic terror at his approach. Then, resplendent in his skin and drunk with heroism and triumph, he swaggered up the hillside and into the school.
*****
As an Ancient Briton, he was not an unqualified success, and more than once Miss Carter regretted her casual invitation. William considered the rehearsal as disappointing as the rehearsal considered him—just standin’ about an’ singin’ an’ talkin’—no fightin’ nor shoutin’ nor nothin’. He was glad he wasn’t a Nanshunt Briton, if that’s all the poor things could do.
However, at last it was over, and he crept again furtively down the hillside to his private dressing-room. Ginger was standing near the cave entrance.