_Crash_!

A heavy volley met them on the left, fired diagonally from half behind
the blazing house.

Then there was a cheer, echoed by a second, and two parties of
blue-jackets were in among the Maoris, who fled, leaving half their
number wounded and prisoners on the ground, while Don and his friends
helped the women out into the open, away from the signs of bloodshed,
which looked horrible in the light from the blazing house.

"A little too late," said the officer in command of the detachment.

"Too late to save my house, sir, but in time to save our lives," said
Gordon, grasping his hand.

"I wish I had been sooner; but it's rough work travelling through the
bush, and we should not have come, only we heard the shouting, and saw
the glow of your burning house."

No time was lost in trying to extinguish the fire after a guard had been
set over the prisoners, the men under the officers' orders working hard
with the few buckets at command; but the place was built of inflammable
pine, which flared up fiercely, and after about a quarter of an hour's
effort Gordon protested against further toil.

"It's of no use, sir," he said. "All labour in vain. I've not lost
much, for my furniture was only home made."

"I'm sorry to give up, but it is useless," said the officer.

Jem crept close up to his companion.

"I say, Mas' Don, I thought it was some of our chaps from the sloop at
first, but they're from the _Vixen_ frigate. Think they'll find us
out?"

"I hope not, Jem," replied Don; "surely they will not press us again."

"Let's be off into the bush till they're gone."

"No," said Don; "I'm sorry I left the ship as I did. We will not run
away again."

Meanwhile preparations were made for bivouacking, the officer
determining to rest where they were that night; and after seeing his men
stored in two of the barns, and sentries placed over the prisoners in
another, at one of the settlers' places, one log-house being given up to
the wounded, he joined the little English gathering, where the settlers'
wives, as soon as the danger was past, had prepared a comfortable meal.

After an uneventful night, the morning broke cheerily over the tiny
settlement, where the only trace of the attack was at Gordon's, whose
rough log-house was now a heap of smoking ashes.

The sailors had breakfasted well, thanks to the settlers' wives, and
were now drawn up, all but the prisoners' guard, while the officer stood
talking to Go