It was a gun; a carbine.
What—Why——?
She remembered something that she had heard Paul say, dim ages ago, when she had watched him in the office, consulting with the Aeroplane Lady over that machine-gun with that wicked-looking little nozzle that he had decided not to mount upon the P.D.Q.
"It'll have to be a rifle after all."
Little Gwenna in her brown disguise sat with this rifle across her knees, wondering.
Why did Paul wish Mr. Ryan to be armed with this? Why hadn't he handed over that carbine just when they were about to start? Why only now, just when they had got as far as the sea?
For she was certain now that what was below them was the sea. There was a bright, silvery glitter to the right, but the floating floor of the biplane shut that out again. To the left all was of a slaty grey. The sun's level rays shot along the length of the biplane as if it were down a gallery.
Gwenna sat there, holding that carbine across her brown wrapped knees, and still puzzling over it. Why had Paul handed the thing over, so suddenly? She could not see the reason.
Even when it appeared she did not at first see the reason.