His ear-drums appeared to be broken. His hat was gone. His body ached from the tremendous dispersion of air. But that he could still hear he discovered when through his shocked auditory nerves he distinguished, as if far off, faint booming echoes from the hills.
He got to his knees, finally to his feet. Pressing his hands to his head he gazed slowly about. Stones and a rain of earth were still falling, as if from a meteoric bombardment. About him he perceived sections of woodwork shaken to pieces, collapsed.
Stepping to the edge of the dam he peered downward. A vast hole showed in the earth before the wall though the wall itself was uninjured and only smeared with a layer of soil. Huge rocks lay where there had been none before, uprooted and flung aside by the explosion, dispersed by the gigantic blast. On the hillside half a dozen men were picking themselves up and struggling wildly to flee. Nearer, a few other forms lay in the moonlight mangled and still, or mangled, and writhing in pain. Of all the rest––nothing.
Almost completely Burkhardt’s predatory band had been blotted out. Weir’s thunderbolt had struck down into its very heart, and it had vanished.
As he turned and walked towards the end of the dam, he staggered a little. The sight had shaken even his iron nerve.