“Pity they hadn’t taken that dining-hall chasseur with them.”
Henri in this moment of alarm, had a thought for the busybody who had tracked them from pillar to post a few hours ago.
A shell landed with tremendous explosion in the courtyard of the château; another, and another, until the whole place was shaken in every foundation, the air was aflame with the shrieking projectiles, and crash after crash made a din that was deafening.
“Us for the tunnel!” cried Henri, as a round-shot clipped the side of the tower above them and sent down a hail of stone chips.
The boys got out from under that tower in a hurry, and fortunate for them that they did. Two or three minutes later the whole structure collapsed under the terrific impact of the shelling.
When the trio ran through the tunnel door, it was sealed behind them by tons of riven stone.
Pale to the lips and trembling as if with acute ague, the boys weakly stumbled down the tunnel’s descending course.
The earth above and about them quaked and shivered as the storm of powder and lead raged outside.
The same powerful engines of destruction that had blasted and silenced the French barrier forts had been turned on the château and its surroundings. Such buildings were as paper before this cannonading.
The walls of the tunnel were holding as far as the boys had proceeded. But they had yet to traverse the line in low ground, where they had noted, in coming, the sagging roof and leaning walls, which even then had almost choked up the passage.