His hands trembled, and a curious feeling of excitement coursed through his veins, as at that moment he felt the stock of a gun pressed into his hands, Jem exclaiming the next moment as he too clasped a gun.
“But there arn’t no powder and— Yes, there is.”
Jem ceased speaking, for he had suddenly felt that there was a belt and pouch attached to the gun-barrel, and without another word he slipped the belt over his shoulder.
“What do you mean, Ngati?” whispered Don hastily.
“Go!” was the laconic reply; and in an instant the lad realised that the Maori had partly comprehended his words that evening, had thought out the full meaning, and then crept silently to the convicts’ den, and secured the arms.
Don rose excitedly to his feet.
“The time has come, Jem,” he whispered.
“Yes, and I dursen’t shout hooroar!”
Ngati was already outside, waiting in the starlight; and as Don stepped out quickly with his heart beating and a sense of suffocation at the throat, he could just make out that the Maori held the third musket, and had also three spears under his arm.
He handed one of the latter to each, and then stood listening for a few moments with his head bent in the direction of the convicts’ resting-place.