As it was, his question was quite loud enough to electrify the person to whom it was addressed. The unknown started so violently that he nearly leapt into the air. Kennedy was barely two yards from him when he spoke.
The next moment this fact was brought home to him in a very practical manner. The unknown, sighting the sentry, perhaps more clearly against the dim whiteness of the tents than Kennedy could sight him against the dark wood, dashed in with a rapidity which showed that he knew something of the art of boxing. Kennedy dropped his rifle and flung up his arm. He was altogether too late. A sudden blaze of light, and he was on the ground, sick and dizzy, a feeling he had often experienced before in a slighter degree, when sparring in the Eckleton gymnasium with the boxing instructor.
The immediate effect of a flush hit in the regions about the jaw is to make the victim lose for the moment all interest in life. Kennedy lay where he had fallen for nearly half a minute before he fully realised what it was that had happened to him. When he did realise the situation, he leapt to his feet, feeling sick and shaky, and staggered about in all directions in a manner which suggested that he fancied his assailant would be waiting politely until he had recovered. As was only natural, that wily person had vanished, and was by this time doing a quick change into garments of the night. Kennedy had the satisfaction of knowing—for what it was worth—that his adversary was in one of those tents, but to place him with any greater accuracy was impossible.
So he gave up the search, found his rifle, and resumed his patrol. And at one o’clock his successor relieved him.
On the following day camp broke up.
Kennedy always enjoyed going home, but, as he travelled back to Eckleton on the last day of these summer holidays, he could not help feeling that there was a great deal to be said for term. He felt particularly cheerful. He had the carriage to himself, and he had also plenty to read and eat. The train was travelling at forty miles an hour. And there were all the pleasures of a first night after the holidays to look forward to, when you dashed from one friend’s study to another’s, comparing notes, and explaining—five or six of you at a time—what a good time you had had in the holidays. This was always a pleasant ceremony at Blackburn’s, where all the prefects were intimate friends, and all good sorts, without that liberal admixture of weeds, worms, and outsiders which marred the list of prefects in most of the other houses. Such as Kay’s! Kennedy could not restrain a momentary gloating as he contrasted the state of affairs in Blackburn’s with what existed at Kay’s. Then this feeling was merged in one of pity for Fenn’s hard case. How he must hate the beginning of term, thought Kennedy.
All the well-known stations were flashing by now. In a few minutes he would be at the junction, and in another half-hour back at Blackburn’s. He began to collect his baggage from the rack.
Nobody he knew was at the junction. This was the late train that he had come down by. Most of the school had returned earlier in the afternoon.
He reached Blackburn’s at eight o’clock, and went up to his study to unpack. This was always his first act on coming back to school. He liked to start the term with all his books in their shelves, and all his pictures and photographs in their proper places on the first day. Some of the studies looked like lumber-rooms till near the end of the first week.
He had filled the shelves, and was arranging the artistic decorations, when Jimmy Silver came in. Kennedy had been surprised that he had not met him downstairs, but the matron had answered his inquiry with the statement that he was talking to Mr. Blackburn in the other part of the house.
“When did you arrive?” asked Silver, after the conclusion of the first outbreak of holiday talk.
“I’ve only just come.”
“Seen Blackburn yet?”
“No. I was thinking of going up after I had got this place done properly.”
Jimmy Silver ran his eye over the room.
“I haven’t started mine yet,” he said. “You’re such an energetic man. Now, are all those books in their proper places?”
“Yes,” said Kennedy.
“Sure?”
“Yes.”
“How about the pictures? Got them up?”
“All but this lot here. Shan’t be a second. There you are. How’s that for effect?”
“Not bad. Got all your photographs in their places?”
“Yes.”
“Then,” said Jimmy Silver, calmly, “you’d better start now to pack them all up again. And why, my son? Because you are no longer a Blackburnite. That’s what.”
Kennedy stared.
“I’ve just had the whole yarn from Blackburn,” continued Jimmy Silver. “Our dear old pal, Mr. Kay, wanting somebody in his house capable of keeping order, by way of a change, has gone to the Old Man and borrowed you. So you’re head of Kay’s now. There’s an honour for you.”
IX
The Sensations of an Exile
“What” shouted Kennedy.
He sprang to his feet as if he had had an electric shock.
Jimmy Silver, having satisfied his passion for the dramatic by the abruptness with which he had exploded his mine, now felt himself at liberty to be sympathetic.
“It’s quite true,” he said. “And that’s just how I felt when Blackburn told me. Blackburn’s as sick as anything. Naturally he doesn’t see the point of handing you over to Kay. But the Old Man insisted, so he caved in. He wanted to see you as soon as you arrived. You’d better go now. I’ll finish your packing.”
This was noble of Jimmy, for of all the duties of life he loathed packing most.
“Thanks awfully,” said Kennedy, “but don’t you bother. I’ll do it when
