I stared at Mr Raydon wonderingly, for his behaviour was inexplicable to me; but I had no time given me for thought. As soon as Barker and the two men who came up with him had gone, Mr Raydon chose two of his little garrison, and sent them, well armed, and with as big loads of supplies as they could carry, by the near cut over the mountains, that is by the track taken when he and his men came to our help.
Directly after, in a sharp military way, he led us to his little armoury, and gave us each a rifle and pistol, with a few words of instruction as to where the weapons were to be kept in readiness for use; and, in addition, what we were to do in the places of the two men who had gone.
I was glad of this, for it took up my time, and gave me something else to think about. It was pleasant too—the duty of having to help in the defence of the Fort where my friends were gathered.
“Some day he’ll be sorry for it all,” I said to myself; and I was brooding over the past again, when Esau uttered a low chuckle, which made me turn to him wonderingly.
“Only think of it, Mayne Gordon,” he said. “What a game!”
“What is a game?”
“You always being so dead on to me about going for a soldier, and here we are both of us good as soldiers after all. Why, if he’d let us tackle one of those guns,” he continued, pointing to a little cannon mounted in the block-house, “it would be like joining the Ryle Artilleree.”