Even as his hand leapt to the modern automatic lying out of it's holster and loose on his knees, the pistol of the centuries went off.

Loaded with two slugs and a round bullet, its effect was that of a sawed-off shotgun.

And Van Horn knew the blaze and the black of death, even as "Gott fer dang!" died unuttered on his lips and as his fingers relaxed from the part-lifted automatic, dropping it to the floor.
Surcharged with black powder, the ancient weapon had other effect.

It burst in Bashti's hand.

While Aora, with a knife produced apparently from nowhere, proceeded to hack off the white master's head, Bashti looked quizzically at his right forefinger dangling by a strip of skin.
He seized it with his left hand, with a quick pull and twist wrenched it off, and grinningly tossed it, as a joke, into the pandanus basket which still his wife with one hand held before him while with the other she clutched her forehead bleeding from a flying fragment of pistol.
Collaterally with this, three of the young recruits, joined by their fathers and uncles, had downed, and were finishing off the only one of the boat's crew that was below.