All very well, but the matches were on the table, and to secure them one would have to get out of bed. No one seemed quite inclined for that.
As we lay endeavouring to screw up our courage to the necessary pitch, the sound once more recommenced, with a violent motion towards the edge of the roof. The moon at the same moment broke out from behind the clouds and shot its pale light in at the big windows. There was a momentary pause above us, and then, casting a sudden shadow across the dormitory floor, a dim white figure, as of a body without limbs, floated down outside the window. The moon once more was obscured, and we were left motionless and horrified in utter silence and darkness! What would come next?
How long we might have remained in suspense I can’t say, had not Lamb and another fellow, by a combined effort of heroism, dashed arm in arm from bed and secured the matches. They were in the act of striking a light (one match had broken, and another had had no head)—they were in the act of striking a light when Lamb, who was close to the window, suddenly exclaimed—“Look!”
There was such terror in his tone that we knew only too well what he had seen. But where!
“Where?” I managed to gasp.
“There, down in the quad,” he replied, pointing out of the window, but looking another way.
Curiosity is sometimes greater than fear, and for all my terror I could not resist the impulse to steal up to the window and look out. And others did the same.
It was as Lamb had said. There in the quadrangle below, moving restlessly to and fro, and swaying itself upward, as if in supplication, was the white form, erect but helpless. For a long time we gazed without a word. At last, one more hardy than the rest said—“What can it be?”
What a question! What could it be but—Bubbles! Still, when the question was once asked, it did occur to one or two of us that possibly we might have jumped to a conclusion too hastily. It’s wonderful how hardy a fellow will get when he’s got twenty fellows clustering round him.
“He’s alive, anyhow,” said one. “Call out to him, some one,” suggested another. “You’re nearest the window, Fraser,” said another. Fraser was vice-captain of the second fifteen, and always touchy whenever his pluck was called in question.