Next moment there rose a shout loud enough to deafen all Saint Dominic’s. The ball was flying fifty feet up in the air, and Raleigh was slowly walking, bat in hand, back to the tent he had only a moment ago quitted!
The captain had been clean bowled, first ball!
Who shall describe the excitement, the yelling, the cheering, the consternation that followed? Paul got up and danced a hornpipe on the bench; Bramble kicked the boy nearest to him. “Well bowled, sir!” shouted some. “Hard lines!” screamed others. “Hurrah for the Fifth!”
“You’ll beat them yet, Sixth!” such were a few of the shouts audible above the general clamour.
As for Stephen, he was wild with joy. He was a staunch partisan of the Fifth in any case, but that was nothing to the fact that it was his brother, his own brother and nobody else’s, who had bowled that eventful ball, and who was at that moment the hero of Saint Dominic’s. Stephen felt as proud and elated as if he had bowled the ball himself, and could afford to be absolutely patronising to those around him, on the head of this achievement.
“That wasn’t a bad ball of Oliver’s,” he said to Paul. “He can bowl very well when he tries.”
“It was a beastly fluke!” roared Bramble, determined to see no merit in the exploit.
“Shut up and don’t make a row,” said Stephen, with a bland smile of forgiveness.
Bramble promised his adversary to shut him up, and after a little more discussion and altercation and jubilation, the excitement subsided, and another man went in. All this while the Fifth were in ecstasies. They controlled their feelings, however, contenting themselves with clapping Oliver on the back till he was nearly dead, and speculating on the chances of beating their adversaries in a single innings.
But they had not won the match yet.