THE EVE OF THE GATHERING
are to do next. If Uncle Nicholas was only here! No one seems to have heard the shots, and we must get away as quickly as we can. Are we just to leave things as they are and go? Oh, do think, Yanni, and think quickly! My head is just one buzzing."
"The black devils!" snarled Yanni. "Treacherous, black devils!"
"Oh, never mind them," cried Mitsos; "they are in hell. What are we to do?"
Yanni's eye brightened.
"This will we do," he said. "There is much powder here. Blow wp the whole place. If we leave it as it is they will find those dead things. Yes, Mitsos, that is the way."
Yanni got up.
"Come inside," he said, "and see if there is plenty of powder."
The two went back and stopped the miliwheel, for it was a blood-curdling thing to see its shredded burden carried round and round. Mitsos dragged the headless wreck away and laid it by the Turk in the centre of the room, while Yanni searched for the powder.
"Look," he said, at last, "here is a whole barrel. That will do our work. I know how to make a train, I have done it at home to blow up rocks. We must waste no time. Go back to the house, Mitsos, and bring your mule—oh yes—and the Turk's horse, too; it will not do to leave that, and take the lot into the woods above the path, lower down there. Then come back here. I shall be ready. I will make a train that will give us about three minutes."
Mitsos ran up to the house, as Yanni suggested, and led the two animals down. He stopped at the mill to tie Yanni's mule to his own, and then struck straight off
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