Instead he pointed the ugly blue muzzle up toward the branches of a maple, under which a dense swarm of the Horde had encamped and now was staring, apelike, at him.
Then his finger sought the trigger. And five crackling spurts of flame, five shots spat out into the calm and misty air of morning. A few severed leaves swayed down, idly, with a swinging motion. A broken twig fell, hung suspended a moment, then detached itself again and crapped to earth.
"Good Lord! Look a' that, will you?" cried Stern.
A startled cry broke from the girl's lips.
Both of them had expected some effect from the sudden fusillade, but nothing like that which actually resulted.
For, as the quick shots echoed to stillness again, and even before the first of the falling leaves had spiraled to the ground, an absolute, unbroken silence fell upon that vile rabble of beast-men--the silence of a numbing, paralyzing, sheer brute terror.
Some stood motionless, crouching on their bandy legs, holding to whatsoever tree or bush was nearest, staring with wild eyes.
Others dropped to their knees.
But by far the greater part, thousands on thousands of the little monstrosities, fell prone and grovelling. Their hideous masklike faces hidden, there they lay on the moss and all among the undergrowth, the trampled, desecrated, befouled undergrowth of Madison Forest.
Then all at once, over and beyond them, Stern saw the blue-curling smudge of the remains of the great fire by the spring.
He knew that, for a few brief, all-precious moments, the way might possibly be clear to come and go--to get water--to save Beatrice and himself from the thirst--tortures--to procure the one necessary thing for the making of his Pulverite.
His heart gave a great, up-bounding leap.
"Look, Beatrice!" cried he, his voice ringing out over the terror-stricken things. "Look--we're gods! While this lasts--gods! Come, now's our only chance! Come on!--"