"Play ball!" shouted Sinclair, and drove a vicious service at Carteret. "Thirty—love!" he continued, and strode back to his right-hand court to serve again.
But there was no use continuing the game. Carteret, who had flung himself on the ground, arose with a hanging jaw and ghastly face, and a nerve too shaken to play any more that day. Miss MacAllister had thrown herself on a settee at the end of the lawn, her face covered with her hands to shut out the sight. The consul, though he had shouted to the others to down, had remained standing himself. He was staring fixedly at Sinclair:
"Doctor, you beat the devil."
"Nothing to get excited about, Beauchamp! Percussion fuse! If it did not explode when it hit the corner of the fort, it wasn't likely to when it went into the soft soil."
"Yes, that's all right. But you hadn't time to work that out before you served again. Besides, it passed within a yard of where you were standing."
"Well, what if it did? A miss is as good as a mile. There was no use going up in the air about it."
"Look here, Sinclair. What the devil ever induced you to play this fool game, anyway?"
"I had to."
The consul looked at him in silence for a minute.
"Well, perhaps you had," he said slowly.