“Too rough yet, boys.  They’re going to postpone another hour.”  Twice had the coach brought this word to the group of pent-up young men who in a manner of speaking were sharing the emotions of the condemned awaiting the executioner’s summons.  Would the up-river breeze never subside and give them conditions that would be satisfactory to the meticulous referee?

Deacon lurched heavily in his seat.

“What difference does it make so long as the shells won’t sink?” he asked.

“We’re ready,” replied Dick Rollins.  “It’s Shelburne holding things up; she wants smooth water, of course.  It suits me, though.  Things will soften up by sunset.”

“Sunset!” Deacon scowled at the western skies.  “Well, sunset isn’t so far off as it was.”

Word came, as a matter of fact, shortly after five o’clock.  The coach, with solemn face, came up to the cottage, bringing the summons.  After that for a little while Jim Deacon passed through a series of vague impressions rather than living experience.  There was the swift changing of clothes in the cavernous boathouse, the bearing of the boat high overhead to the edge of the float, the splash as it was lowered into the water.  Mechanically he leaned forward to lace the stretcher-shoes, letting the handle of his oar rest against his stomach; mechanically he tried to slide, tested the oarlock.

Then some one gripped the blade of his oar, pushing gently outward.  The shell floated gingerly out into the stream.

“Starboard oars, paddle.”  Responsive to the coxswain’s sharp command Deacon plied his blade, and in the act there came to him clarity of perception.  He was out here to win, to win not only for Baliol, but for himself, for his father.  There could be no thought of not winning; the imminence of the supreme test had served to fill him with the consciousness of indomitable strength, to thrill his muscles with the call for tremendous action.

As the shell swept around a point of land, a volume of sound rolled across the waters.  Out of the corner of his eye he caught view of the long observation-train, vibrant with animation, the rival colours commingled so that all emblem of collegiate affiliation was lost in a merger of quivering hue.  A hill near the starting-line on the other side of the river was black with spectators, who indeed filled points of vantage all down the four miles of the course.  The clouds above the western hills were turning crimson; the waters had deepened to purple and were still and silent.

“There, you hell-dogs!” The voice of the coxswain rasped in its combativeness.  “Out there is Shelburne; ahead of us at the line.  Who says it’ll be the last time she’ll be ahead of us?”

Along the beautiful line of brown, swinging bodies went a low growl, a more vicious rattle of the oarlocks.

Suddenly as Jim Deacon swung forward, a moored skiff swept past his blade, the starting-line.