The expected happened. The third ball was a slow long hop, and hit the
road at about the same spot where the first had landed. A howl of
untuneful applause rose from the watchers in the pavilion, and Mike,
with the feeling that this sort of bowling was too good to be true,
waited in position for number four.

There are moments when a sort of panic seizes a bowler. This happened
now with Mr. Downing. He suddenly abandoned science and ran amok. His
run lost its stateliness and increased its vigor. He charged up to the
wicket as a wounded buffalo sometimes charges a gun. His whole idea now
was to bowl fast.

When a slow bowler starts to bowl fast, it is usually as well to be
batting, if you can manage it.

By the time the over was finished, Mike's score had been increased by
sixteen, and the total of his side, in addition, by three wides.

And a shrill small voice, from the neighborhood of the pavilion, uttered
with painful distinctness the words, "Take him off!"

That was how the most sensational day's cricket began that Sedleigh had
known.

A description of the details of the morning's play would be monotonous.
It is enough to say that they ran on much the same lines as the third
and fourth overs of the match. Mr. Downing bowled one more over, off
which Mike helped himself to sixteen runs, and then retired moodily to
cover point, where, in Adair's fifth over, he missed Barnes--the first