"I know whose it is. He had it up here once before."
"I say," gulped I, "can't you let the water in again?" Dick had not
considered this. His triumph had been letting the water out. However,
he would see what could be done.
We went down into the shrubbery. About a foot of water lay on the
ground, promising great fertility some day, but decidedly muddy-looking
to-day.
"The thing will be to bung up the hole first," said Dicky.
So we set to work to hammer up the end of the zinc pipe and stuff the
aperture round with sods and stones. I even sacrificed my cap to the
good cause.
The bell began to ring before we had well completed the task. "That
ought to keep any more from running out," said Dicky. "If we're lucky,
the water will come in on its own hook at the other end."
The theory was not exactly scientific, for scientific men do not believe
in luck. Still, it was the best we could think of as we turned to go.
"Stop a bit," said I, as we were leaving. "May as well tidy up a bit in
there before we go, eh?"
"In there" was the bed of the pond.
"It might look better," said Dick, turning up his trousers. We decently
interred the pistol in the mud, and raised a small heap of stones to
keep it down; and then cautiously obliterating our footsteps in the mud,
we made for _terra firma_, and scuttled back to school as fast as our
legs would carry us.
Fortunately we entered unobserved, and disencumbered ourselves of our
muddy boots without attracting attention to their condition. Ten
minutes later we were deep in our work in the big schoolroom.
Preparation that night was a solemn and gloomy ceremony. Dicky and I
kept catching one another's eyes, and then glancing on to where the Dux,
cool as a cucumber, sat turning over the leaves of his lexicon.
"He's got a cheek of his own, has Dux," said I to myself.
"If I didn't know it was him," signalled the ungrammatical Dicky across
the room, "I should never have believed it."
"You may make as many faces as you like at young Brown," glared Tempest
at me, "but if I catch you making any more at me, your mother will need
some extra pocket-handkerchiefs."
"Jones," observed Dr Plummer aloud, "a double _poena_ for aggravated
inattention."
All right. I was getting pretty full up with engagements for one day,
and began to think bed-time would be rather a relief.
It came at last. In the dormitory Ramsbottom successfully interfered
with conversation by patrolling the chamber until the boys were asleep.
No one doubted that he had been set to the task by the head master, and
it augured rather badly for the resumption of the inquest next day.
However, even patrols go to sleep sometimes, and when I woke early next
morning the usher had vanished to his own chamber. My first thought was
not Hector, or the doctor, or my _poenas_, or the Dux, but the pond.
How, I wondered, was it getting on?
I routed up Dicky, and very quietly we dressed and slipped out. I knew
that my early rising, if it were discovered, would probably be set down
to my zeal for discharging impositions. But even they must wait now
till we were sure about the pond.
For Dicky and I stood liable to as big a row as the assassin of Hector
himself if anything went wrong with our experiment in engineering.
Luckily very few fellows haunted this particularly muddy corner of the
grounds, and now that Hector was above a daily bath, there was little
chance of Plummer himself discovering the remarkably low tide on his
premises--still less of his poking about among the stones in the bed of
the pool.
To our great relief we found that our dam at the foot was holding out
bravely, and that comparatively little water was trickling through the
bank into the shrubbery. The flow at the upper end, however, was
distressingly small, and though a whole night had passed we could still
see the heap of stones under which the pistol was buried rising up from
the shallow puddles around it, inviting investigation.
With astounding industry we worked away that morning, widening and
deepening the little channel along which the rivulet made its way to the
pond. And before we had done we had the satisfaction of seeing a fairly
brisk inflow. We would fain have waited to see the fatal little island
disappear below the surface. But the first bell was already an sounding
when the water completed the circle, leaving it standing up more
prominent than ever.
To our horror, at this precise moment Tempest strolled down.
"Hullo! what are you two after? Fishing? One way to catch them,
letting all the water out."
"It was an experiment," said Dicky, who, like myself, was very pale as
he looked first at the Dux, then at the guilty hillock in the pond.
"So it seems. In other words, you're making a jolly mess, and are
enjoying yourselves. I hope you'll enjoy it equally, both of you, when
Plummer sees what you've done."
"Shall you tell him?" I asked, somewhat breathlessly. The Dux laughed
scornfully.
"You deserve a hiding for asking such a thing. Come here! Jump out on
to that little island there, and stay there till I tell you."
"Oh, Dux, please not," said I, in a tone of terror, which was quite out
of proportion to the penalty. The pistol was only two inches below the
surface!
"Do you hear? Look sharp, or I'll chuck you there."
That might be worse. It might hurt me and cut up the soil. So I jumped
gingerly out, and stood poised with a foot in the water on either side,
dreading at any moment to see the stones slip and the tell-tale gleam of
the buried weapon.
"If you don't stand properly," said the Dux, "I'll make you sit down.
Come along, young Brown, it's time we went up to school."
"How long am I to stay, please?" I inquired.
"Till you're in water up to the knees," said the Dux, as he turned away,
with the faithless Dicky beside him.
Up to the knees! I stood loyally for five minutes, during which the
water gained about an eighth of an inch up my ankles. Then the second
bell rang, and things became desperate.
Accordingly I knelt in the water until I could confidently assert that I
was wet, very wet indeed, up to the knees; which done, I posted as fast
as my ill-used legs would carry me to morning school.