It all happened so quickly that there was no time to think or wonder, hardly time even to cry out.

Something that looked like a hand, emerging from a white cuff and a dark coat sleeve, appeared for one instant above the parapet of the reservoir just by the angle, and almost the same instant two heads, surmounted by the close green hats of the Redlands girls, shot up to one side of it. The arm waved wildly, and then disappeared with suddenness below the parapet, the two heads diving down after it with startling celerity.

If ever John's new car travelled, it travelled then!

Joey forgot everything else—the match—the roaring furious wind, the sense of cold and hunger—what was happening at the reservoir? And then they were there!

John ran the car into the grass of the roadside; the reservoir stood a little back from the road. He brought the car to a standstill, and grasped the crutches which Joey had ready for him. Together they tore round the angle of the great reservoir, Joey leading.

On the ground below it sat the Professor, one hand clasping the back of his head. He held something close in his other hand.

Before him stood Noreen and Gabrielle, the latter really apologetic, the former certainly inclined to giggle, though she was making a valiant effort to restrain herself.

"I'm frightfully sorry we startled you so," Noreen was explaining. "We didn't mean to; we were just watching for Joey, and then we saw you, and thought it would be fun to take you by surprise. I never thought we should make you fall back. Honour! and as to Gabrielle, it wasn't her plan at all, so you can't blame her."

Noreen's clear carrying voice reached Joey without any difficulty, as she slipped and stumbled over the coarse, sandy grass. The Professor was getting dazedly to his feet while she was speaking; he did not appear to be much mollified by her apology.

"You haf giv me de bad fall," he said. "You haf made me de headache; I cannot smoke...."

He raised his right arm, as though to hurl away in a temper the thick cigar case that he held. It was open; he crushed his thick thumb down on one of the tiny blown-glass bottles that filled it. Joey gave a leap like a young chamois and caught his arm. "The cigar case!" she panted, and Gabrielle caught it as it dropped from the Professor's hand in the surprise and shock.

He turned furiously upon Joey. "You!" he shouted, and flung her violently away from him, snatching at the little case in Gabby's hand before she was prepared.

"John!" Joey screamed; but John was finding it hard going with crutches over the uneven grass, and he was not yet up with them. The Professor broke through the little crowd of girls and dashed for his bicycle. He was on it—if only it would refuse to start! No such luck—he was turning it in the road—he was off!

John dropped one crutch, and stooped down. Next moment his dirk was hurtling through the air, thrown with an accuracy that just got the back wheel tyre. John had bowled for Dartmouth. There was a loud explosion, and bicycle and Professor were mixed up in a heap on the road.

"Lucky you loosened the dirk," John said to Joey, and then they all hurried breathlessly to their fallen enemy.

The Professor was lying quite still half underneath his bicycle.

"Is he killed?" asked Gabrielle, in a quiet awestruck little voice.

John bent over him, and unbuttoned his waist-coat, putting his hand inside. "He's only stunned. Take the case, Joey."

The Professor had flung it into his coat pocket; Joey took it out and gave it to John. He opened it, and took one of the unbroken bottles out, looking at it anxiously. "I expect this was what he worked in the Lab to get done unsuspected."

"Think he's got poisonous germs or something bottled there?" asked Noreen.

"I'm no chemist; but you bet it's some putrid game, like spreading a rotten disease by water. We've got to hand it over to the police any way, and some bacteriologist will tell us all about it. But first we'll have this chap into the car. Can you spare one of those sash things you wear? We'd better tie his hands behind him, or he'll be getting away when he comes to."

Three white braid sashes were at once forthcoming; John took Noreen's, and tied the Professor up thereby securely.

"Doesn't he look different without his moustache!" Noreen observed.

"Oh, he's shaved that, has he?" John asked.

"He took it off in the Lab; it wasn't a real one," Joey explained.

John whistled, and grinned approvingly.

"You saw a fair lot through your keyhole! Well, I suppose it's pretty clear that our gentleman was in the habit of altering his appearance for reasons of his own. Another item in his bill. But he didn't show the usual Hun attention to detail—when he took the key out before he had finished everything, did he?"

"He thought no one would know where he was. He forgot Tiddles, I expect," Joey contributed.

John tied the last knot with a flourish, just as the Professor began to show signs of returning consciousness.

"Tiddles? Oh, the Belgian baby! Yes, I expect he forgot her. So she knew you were there."

"Yes; I think she saw my shoe sticking out of the hole I made in the roof, and fetched Frances—the pet!" Joey said. "I say, Gabrielle, do you think I'll be in a fearful row with Miss Conyngham again? for I've done dreadful things in the Lab, besides coming out all untidy."

"I doubt if you'll get it in the neck from your Miss Conyngham this time," John told her cheeringly. "But now we must attend to business. How do you find yourself now, sir? Can you get into my car, or do you want to be helped there?"

The Professor for all answer made a struggle with his hands, but the braid was strong, and John knew how to tie his knots.

"No go," said John. "You had better come quietly. I'm sorry we had to tie you up; but we'll make you as comfortable as we can."

The Professor regained his breath and his senses.

"I do not understand dis outrage," he said. "I shall spik of it to Miss Conyngham instantly. Dese girls shall be punished...."

"I'm afraid you've cut your cheek a bit," John said concernedly. "Let me get your handkerchief—do you keep it in your pocket or up your sleeve? It's the violet handkerchief I want, the one where the code letters come out when you hold it to the fire—K V, you know."

The shot went home. "What is this fairy tale," the Professor asked contemptuously. But he had paused before he asked it—the pause had been perceptible.

"Now will you get into the car, Professor Trouville," John said politely. "I think you see that we have some grounds for this—outrage."

He turned to the girls. "I'll drive you to the match if you like, and then this gentleman on to the police station."

The Professor struggled unwillingly to his feet. Joey looked at Gabrielle and Noreen. The match had ceased to be of the first importance.

Besides John was very lame; if the Professor got loose, by any chance, he might need their help. She turned to Gabrielle. "Do you think we might go with John? John, this is Gabrielle, she's Head of the Lower School and a frightful knut, and can give leave for all kinds of things. The other is Noreen, and they're both special friends."

"Look here," said John to Gabrielle, "I really think you had better give leave for the three of you to see the affair through. The circumstances are exceptional—and I doubt if there will be much of a match to-day in this wind, anyhow. Besides I'll run you back to Deeping Royal before anyone's missed you, and then you can explain to your boss."

"Well I think we might, and thank you ever so much," Gabrielle answered very properly, but with eyes that sparkled.

"Right!" John said, and then they all bundled into the car, Professor and all, leaving the damaged bicycle in the road. It was a terrible squeeze, of course, to get five into a two-seater; but much can be done when people are determined. The Professor, yellow and strained-looking, was wedged in between John and Gabrielle; while Joey and Noreen squeezed somehow into the little emergency seat behind. The car dashed back along the road they had come.

As they had tucked themselves in Joey noticed that Noreen's shoes were squelching with wet.

"Did you sit on the edge and put your feet in the reservoir?" she asked.

Noreen laughed. "No, but when I wedged my feet at the angle it seemed to have sprung a leak. Hush! Don't tell Gabrielle. She'll probably think we ought to go back like the Dutch kid, and stop it with a finger."

"I expect it will do all right if we report it at the police station," Joey said. "But it must be a healthy leak, if it's made you as wet as all that."

"It's always happening," explained Noreen, the experienced. "The reservoir was done with scamped work in the first instance—haven't you heard our beloved Miss Craigie draw a moral for our benefit? Oh, well, if you haven't, you will. And they're always having to shore up one bank or another.... I say, you're shivering; it is jolly cold for motoring."

John caught the words, and rammed on his brakes. "What an ass I am! Put on my coat, Kid."

He began to struggle out of his motor-coat. His arms were half in and half out when the Professor sprang to his feet, his hands freed, the frayed ends of the braid sash hanging. He had John's dirk in his left hand; he had released himself by rubbing up against it; in his right was a small revolver.

"Now I think we shall talk rather differently," he snarled. "You will drive me to the station, young gentleman, and these young ladies will get out to walk to Deeping Royal or Redlands—I care not which."

The Professor was holding the revolver within an inch of John's neck. Joey wondered whether it was all a bad dream, or a reality in which she ought to make a snatch at the revolver, and try and overpower the Professor. But John settled the question before she had time to decide.

"Get out, girls," he said. "You had better go straight to Deeping Royal. I'll drive the Professor along as he suggests."

Joey got out obediently, and the other two followed suit.

"Hurry!" the Professor snarled.

John got his hands free of his coat in leisurely fashion. The girls stood close together on the road. "Let's go for him," whispered Noreen; but Joey was looking at John.

John's thin brown face was perfectly impassive, but his right eyelid lay dead upon his cheek. Joey knew quite well that John, alone, and with a very game leg, had nevertheless something up his sleeve.

"Get on!" reiterated the Professor. His French accent was dropping from him, Joey noticed; he spoke good English now, though with the hard guttural which hardly any Englishman achieves.

The car was a self-starter. John whirled off without remark, leaving the three Redlands girls stranded rather forlornly on the wind-swept road.

They all three shivered a little as the car grew smaller and smaller in the distance. They were afraid for John, and also puzzled by his acquiescence in the situation—an acquiescence so out of keeping with the little bit of ribbon on his jacket. Added to which they were all three very cold, and a longish walk and drive lay between them and tea.

Noreen broke the silence. "I vote we get on to Deeping Royal, and tell Miss Conyngham what has happened. Some story anyhow, if she does row us for sloping off. Won't she be jolly excited to know about the Professor? What do you say, Gabrielle and Joey?"

"Yes, I think we had better go now," Gabrielle agreed. "I'm afraid we can't do anything for John, and Miss Conyngham ought to know."

But Joey stood still stubbornly by the roadside. "I don't care if she ought; I'm going to wait for John," she said. "At least, I mean, I'm going along to Mote to tell Cousin Greta what's happened to him."

Joey tried to speak as though she did not mind a bit about the three-mile tramp, or anything. "You two go along to the match, and tell Miss Conyngham. I'll try and square up the disobedience and being so untidy, and letting Redlands down, afterwards, when there's time."

Joey thought she had never realised till then what her two friends could be. Each seized an arm.

"Slink back to the match, and leave you to be in a row all by yourself? Likely, isn't it, you juggins?" Noreen inquired scornfully. And Gabrielle—Gabrielle, Head of the Lower School, who had never been known to break a rule since Joey had known her, added calmly:

"We'll all go to Mote, Joey; I think you are right. Of course it is disobeying the Redlands rule; but I will explain to Miss Conyngham why we did it, afterwards. In any case we couldn't leave you."

"I say, you are bricks!" Joey said rather chokingly, and then the three set out together at a run towards the turning to Mote. They had passed it in the car, and were indeed now within about half a mile of the Round Tower. Joey found herself noticing, for all her anxiety about John, how gaunt and sinister it looked, standing up against the shivering sodden grass, and the dreary wind-swept sky, in that minute before she and the others turned their backs upon it, and began to struggle towards Mote in the teeth of a wind that seemed to have grown overwhelmingly strong in the last few minutes.

Now that they faced towards the sea it was truly terrific. Noreen and Gabrielle had their close school hats jammed low upon their foreheads, and even then it was almost impossible to keep them on. Joey, being hatless, was not affected by this difficulty; but her djibbah flapped furiously about her, her hair was all over the place, and she found it really difficult to keep her footing. It was extraordinary how much the gale had grown within the last twelve or fifteen minutes.

But the three friends locked arms and fought their way on determinedly. Joey meant to get somehow to Mote, and let John's people know what he was doing.

"And after that we shall probably meet the school—going home," Gabrielle gasped out; "and we can get ourselves picked up. They'll have to come back; they can never play the match out in this wind."

"I hope they come along soon; it's going to pour by the look of the sky, and we haven't got macs," Noreen said. "There! I felt a splash of rain in my face already."

"So did I; but it wasn't rain, it tasted salt," panted Gabrielle.

"Spray couldn't come out here, could it?" asked Joey. "We're a long way from the sea."

"About a mile," Noreen screamed in her ear.

"Oh, no, spray couldn't come out here, even at the most extraordinarily high tide."

Another dash in their faces. "That came from the river," said Gabrielle.

They had almost reached the low-arched bridge that spans the river Mentle, about three-quarters of a mile beyond the Round Tower. The water was surging angrily against the arches, and, at intervals of a minute or so, sending up a great splash over the very low stone border and into the road.

"Funny, because it can't be high tide yet," said Noreen. "I looked it up to see if there was any chance of the Team getting splashed in Fishmarket Field. It isn't till 3.40."

"Then it's going to be an extra specially high one," remarked the experienced Gabrielle, looking down at the surging, bankless Mentle.

"I should think they would get some healthy splashes in the field; the spray comes right over the old sea-wall in a really rough tide."

"Oh, never mind the old tide—let's get on to Mote!" urged Joey.

And just as she said it, the thing happened.

There was a sudden appalling roar—a long, crashing roar. The river gave a sort of shuddering sigh, and then, far off along its brimming level, something seemed to rise up—a great grey wall, foam-tipped. Joey stared at it, fascinated, but not frightened.

But Gabrielle knew the fens. She grasped Joey roughly by the arm, Gabrielle, who was always so gentle in her ways.

"Come on! Run! Run back from the river," she screamed. "That's an Eigre!"

Joey hadn't a notion what an Eigre might be, but there was urgency in Gabrielle's tone. They all three turned and ran back along the road that they had come. Only Joey looked over her shoulder, and thought she never would forget what she saw as long as she lived.

The wall of water, curling as it came, swept nearer; then suddenly it broke with a noise like thunder, and, with a great swirl and rush, the water was over the bridge in a whirl, was spreading far and wide, was about their feet.

"Run!" Gabrielle shouted again, as a second great surge brought the water washing against their knees. And run they did, through a world that seemed all water, as far as the eye could reach.

No one who was at Redlands then, least of all those three friends, will ever forget that wild 31st of October, when the old sea-wall went down, and the highest tide that men had known for thirty years burst in upon the Deeps of Little Holland!