THE BIG SCENE
Nothing could be done! No power on earth could stop that projectile now until it had spent itself, or until it had struck something and exploded.
Horror-stricken, those near the big gun looked across the intervening space. How many would survive what was to follow?
The man who had pulled the lanyard sank to the ground, covering his face with his hands.
For a brief instant Paul, leading his men, looked back at the sound of the unexpected shot. He had been told that no more were to be fired. Doubtless, this was an extra one to make the pictures more realistic. But when he saw, in a flash, something black and menacing leaping through the air toward him and his men, instinctively he cried:
"Duck, everybody! Duck!"
He fell forward on his face and those of his men who heard and understood did likewise.
Ruth, Alice and Estelle, who were watching the scene from a distant knoll, hardly understood what it was all about. They had thought no more shots would be fired when Paul began his charge, but one had boomed out, and surely that was a projectile winging its way toward the partly demolished hill.
"That is carrying realism a little too far," said Ruth. "I hope——"
"Paul has fallen!" cried Alice. "Oh—something has happened!"