The tension grows. One of Garlett’s professionals, a chartered jester of the Surrey team, forgets to play off the antics with which he is wont to amuse the crowd at the famous Oval ground, and suddenly becomes quite serious. 6Still the score mounts up. On the great staging beside the scorer’s box large tin numbers painted in white on a black ground show the progress of the game.

6

Now, the last Australian is going in. What is the score? Ah, see, the man is just changing the plates—yes, there it is! Nine wickets down for 230 runs. Only four more to make and the match is won—and lost!

What is the matter? Why is Mr. Garlett talking to the bowler? A little plan of campaign, no doubt. Every heart on the ground beats a little faster, even surely those well-schooled hearts concealed beneath the white flannels which stand out so brilliantly on the deep green of the pitch.

The newcomer takes his block. He is a huge creature with thick, jet-black beard, a good man at rounding up the most difficult steers on the far South Australian plains.

“Play!” Swift flies the ball from the height of the bowler’s swing, and our cattle tamer, playing forward, drives it with a mighty swipe. “Oh, well hit, sir!” Is it a boundary? If so, the match is won. No, no, one of Garlett’s agile undergraduates has arrived like a white flash at the right spot and at the right moment. Like lightning he gathers the ball and returns it to the wicket. Ah, a runout? No, yes, no—Black Beard has just got home. It was a narrow shave, but two precious runs have been added.

Only two more to make! Everyone is silent in the tense excitement. Again the ball flies from the bowler’s hand, and this time the Australian giant decides to go all out for a winning hit. He opens his brawny chest, all rippling with knotted muscles, and, taking the ball fair in the middle of the bat, lifts it in a huge and lofty curve which seems certain to come to earth beyond the boundary of the pitch.

But wait! Garlett is there, at extra long-on. It is the catch he has planned with the bowler. It is all over in a moment, and yet what a long moment it seems to the entranced spectators!

That little round leather ball high up against the evening sky reaches the top of its flight. Ah, it is over the pavilion! No, it is impossible! But Garlett does it, all the same. With a mighty backward leap he gets the ball into his safe hands just as it was dropping on to the seats in front of the 

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