"But they don't seem to be going to attack," ventured Roger. "They look to me as though they were settling down for a long stay. I can't see 'em digging trenches yet, but maybe there are some already dug."
While getting the food and ammunition in readiness, and dragging back the dead bodies out of the way, the boys occasionally looked from the mill windows. As Roger had said, the army appeared to have come to a halt, both the center and the wings.
The Khaki Boys had just finished binding up their minor hurts, and were talking of their chances for escape, when there suddenly sounded outside a whine, a scream and a mingled roar.
The next instant there was an explosion that threw them all flat from the force of the concussion, and a terrific noise deafened them. They seemed to be at the ending of the career of this part of the old earth as they saw the whole front wall of the red mill collapse, falling as though sliced off by a gigantic cleaver.
CHAPTER XI
A STRANGE RESCUE
Stunned by the concussion, half choked by the clouds of dust and smoke, terribly jarred when they had been felled by the force of the explosion just outside the mill, our five heroes lay, for several seconds, totally unable to stir. Had there been a rush of Huns on them at that moment, or had some following explosion endangered the mill, they would not have been able to move to save themselves.
But, for a time, there was no further explosion, so that the Khaki Boys had a chance to recover their breath, and, what was more important in their perilous situation, gather their no less scattered wits.
"What—what in the name of the great Attila himself was that?" gasped
Roger.
"I think it was yet a gun what went off," mildly said Iggy.