The blast had come at their very elbows, and they were too dazed and shaken by it to grasp its significance.  Then, before they could realize what it boded, the depths lit up again till the raindrops were outlined distinct and glistening like a gossamer veil of silver, while the office building to their left was ripped and rended and the adjoining walls leaped out into sudden relief, their shattered windows looking like ghostly, sightless eyes.  The curtain of darkness closed heavier than velvet, and the men cowered in their tracks, shielding themselves behind the nearest objects or behind one another’s bodies, waiting for the sky to vomit over them its rain of missiles.  Their backs were to the Vigilantes now, their faces to the centre.  Many had dropped their rifles.  The thunder of hoofs and the scream of terrified horses came from the stables.  The cry of a maddened beast is weird and calculated to curdle the blood at best, but with it arose a human voice, shrieking from pain and fear of death.  A wrenched and doubled mass of zinc had hurtled out of the heavens and struck some one down.  The choking hoarseness of the man’s appeal told the story, and those about him broke into flight to escape what might follow, to escape this danger they could not see but which swooped out of the blackness above and against which there was no defence.  They fled only to witness another and greater light behind them by which they saw themselves running, falling, grovelling.  This time they were hurled from their balance by a concussion which dwarfed the two preceding ones.  Some few stood still, staring at the rolling smoke-bank as it was revealed by the explosion, their eyes gleaming white, while others buried their faces in their hollowed arms as if to shut out the hellish glare, or to shield themselves from a blow.

Out in the heart of the chaos rang a voice loud and clear: 

“Beware the next blast!”

At the same instant the girdle of sharp-shooters rose up smiting the air with their cries and charged in like madmen through the rain of detritus.  They fired as they came, but it was unnecessary, for there was no longer a fight.  It was a rout.  The defenders, feeling they had escaped destruction only by a happy chance in leaving the bunk-house the instant they did, were not minded to tarry here where the heavens fell upon their heads.  To augment their consternation, the horses had broken from their stalls and were plunging through the confusion.  Fear swept over the men—­ blind, unreasoning, contagious—­and they rushed out into the night, colliding with their enemies, overrunning them in the panic to quit this spot.  Some dashed off the bluff and fell among the pits and sluices.  Others ran up the mountain-side, and cowered in the brush like quail.

As the “Stranglers” assembled their prisoners near the ruins, they heard wounded men moaning in the darkness, so lit torches and searched out the stricken ones.  Glenister came running through the smoke pall, revolver in hand, crying:  “Has any one seen McNamara?” No one had, and when they were later assembled to take stock of their injuries he was greeted by Dextry’s gleeful announcement: