"Sam! can you speak to me? Where are the babies, and Mamie?"
"Gone!" The breath whistled through the tortured lips. "Macheted—thank God, I saw them die. Tell Geoff—save you——"
The whisper died in a rattle and the head slumped inert against her knee.
"It's over, Billie. Get on down to the cellar, quick——" Gentleman Geoff's tones rang with command, but the girl shook her head.
"Where the liquor is stored?" she smiled. "Alvarez's men won't leave a cask unturned. No, Dad, I'd rather take a chance with you, here. If it comes to a showdown, they won't get me."
She made a significant gesture, and the lethargy of consternation fell from Thode as he saw for the second time that day the glint of her revolver.
"Good God!" he exclaimed. "Isn't there something to be done? We're only a handful! Are we going to wait here for that black devil to come and slaughter us?"
"No, Son," Gentleman Geoff drawled. "We're going to put up the stiffest fight we know how, but there's no help nearer than the barracks at the oil refinery ten miles north, and El Negrito is on the way."
As if in corroboration of his words a new sound broke all at once upon their ears, distant at first but drawing rapidly close, a fusillade of shots, and the pounding of a multitude of hoofs.
Gentleman Geoff drew one slim hand across his reeking forehead.