The blind men whirled from the half-full pen and came lunging at him. The old females screeched throaty harsh orders. And Masson raised the gun that he somehow had managed to cling to.
"Go back," he ordered in the language of the Butrads, "go out of the cave before I kill."
"He is but one," croaked the ancient ones, "destroy the desecrator of the Place of Birth."
Now Masson could see that the eyes of the four Frog males had been neatly gouged from their sockets in days past. Probably they were blinded that they might not see the forbidden magic of the eggs that became Frogs. Or perhaps they were blinded that they might not escape from the birth caves into the outer jungles.
Yet in the semi-gloom of the cave they were not at too great a disadvantage. They listened for the movement of Masson's body, and the breath of his lungs guided them. The young of the Butrads were silent, too. The sudden quiet was a roar in his ears.
They closed in, great chunks of stone clenched in their fists. A Frog with but a club or a crude spear would have been beaten. But the puny hollow tube of metal that the Earthman carried held the strength of many heavy clubs and many huge rocks in its miniature pebbles of shaped copper.
Masson fired and a Frog went down. The other three came on uncertainly, and he fired again. The two remaining Butrads stopped.
"There are many of them, Old Ones," one of them cried. "They have struck down Trew and Brun with thunder."
"There is only one!" cried the wrinkled old females. "Kill him! Strike him down!"