Milo let loose his infernal blast, and the smashing report was followed by a hush as of death. Then through the blinding and choking powder-reek came the groans and shrieks of the mutilated wretches whose evil fate had placed them in the path of the horribly despatched treasure. The eye could not penetrate the smoke that filled the narrow rock passage; Stumpy and his men were blackened and smeared with smoke and sweat, demoniacal to the ultimate degree; and these were the men Milo hurled forth now to make the débâcle complete.
"Out upon them!" he cried, urging Stumpy to the ledge. "Leave not one of these dogs alive, Stumpy, and thy fortune is made. Thy Sultana will reward thee magnificently. Out with ye!"
Stumpy hitched his poor clubfoot along in brave haste, and flourished his cutlas in a hand that dripped red. For once in his stormy life the crippled pirate felt something of the glow that pervaded the heart of devoted Milo: for a moment he felt he was redeeming himself by enlisting his undoubted courage in a worthy cause.
"At 'em, lads!" he roared, leaping down through the smoke. "Dolores, Dolores! Give 'em hell, bullies!"
He stumbled and fell, his crippled foot playing him false. He sprang up with a curse of pain, bit hard on his lip, and plunged into the huddled remnants of the attackers, his roaring bullies at his heels. His onslaught was the one thing needed to put terror into the hearts of the survivors of Milo's blast. Coming through the leek like so many devils, Stumpy and his crew put their foes to flight and followed eagerly, hungrily; the forest rang and echoed with the clash of action and the smashing of underbrush in panicky flight.
Now Milo, his duty to his Sultana performed, thought of Pascherette. The little octoroon lay where she had fallen, a pitiful little huddled heap; never once had her pain-dulled eyes left the giant, or the place where he might appear. And now she saw him coming toward her, not as a ministering angel, but like a figure of wrath, swinging his great broad-ax in one hand as easily as another man might swing a cutlas. She shivered as he stood over her, accusing.
"Milo!" she panted, gazing up at his magnificent height in plaintive supplication.
"Serpent!" he replied, and the utter contempt in his voice went to her heart like a sword-thrust. "Hast a God to pray to before I send thy false soul adrift?"
"I have but one God, Milo; to Him I should not pray."
She fixed her burning gaze upon him, and in her pained eyes blazed all the tremendous love that actuated her small being.