"Yes. They'll have a lesson they'll never forget, and many of them will never have the chance to. What about our wives, Blair? Shall we send them away till it is over?"
Kenneth Blair's lips pinched tight at the thought of it all, and he walked heavily and in silence.
"We are in God's hands," he said at last. "I think it must be left to themselves to decide."
"Then they will stop," said Evans decisively.
"Yes, they will stop," said Blair. "God grant us a safe deliverance!"
"Amen!" said Evans, and they walked in the shadow of the coming death.
The ladies received the news with white faces but stout hearts, and did not hesitate one moment.
Their place was beside the men. They did not wait to count the cost, though in each one of them was the dull, dread knowledge of what that cost might be. Their duty was to these brown kinsfolk of their adoption, and they were British born.
Evans took charge of the defence with all the energy and skill that were in him, and, possessing their souls in God, they all went quietly into the fight, compared with which the battle of One-Tree Pass was veriest child's play.
The village was sheltered by the bush and the crowding palms. Every man was taken off the dismantled Torch, and set to work building a hospital on the beach, a long, open house of poles and palm-leaves, through which the fresh sea breezes could blow at will. Soft springy couches of palm-leaves were ranged inside, and the simple preparations were complete.