"Deep down!"
"Deep under the earth."
"There must be shafts!" said Recklow hoarsely.
"None."
"No shafts to the surface?"
"Not one."
"No pipe? No communication with the outer air?"
Then McKay's sunken eyes glittered and he stiffened up, and his wasted features seemed to shrink until the parting of his lips showed his teeth. It was a dreadful laughter—his manner, now, of expressing mirth.
"Recklow," he said, "in 1914 that vast enterprise was scheduled to be finished according to plan. With the declaration of war in August the Hun was to have blasted his way to the surface of French soil behind the barrier forts! He was prepared to do it in half an hour's time.
"Do you understand? Do you see how it was planned? For forty-eight years the Hun had been preparing to seize France and crush Europe.