Then came silence and darkness—a darkness that weighed heavily on them all, while Blake, who had been in the lead, tried to move his hand to flash on the electric light that had gone out or been broken. He could barely move, and as he felt dirt and rocks all about him there was borne to his senses the horrible message:
"Buried alive!"
After that thought mercifully came unconsciousness.
CHAPTER XXV
THE END OF LABENSTEIN
How long they lay entombed in the German tunnel the moving picture boys did not know. They must have been unconscious for some time.
Joe was the first to regain his senses. Telling about it later, he said he dreamed that he had been taking views in Earthquake Land and that, somehow or other, a volcano had fallen on his chest. He had difficulty in breathing, and no wonder, for as he came to his senses he found that a great rock and a pile of earth were across him.
Slowly at first, fearing to move much because he might bring down more débris on himself, Joe felt about. He found that his arms and hands were comparatively free, though partly buried in earth.
"I say!" he called, and his voice sounded strange in that dark and broken tunnel, "is any one here but me? Blake! Charlie! Are you alive?"