The next second a heavy roar filled the air and the forts disappeared completely from view in the brownish vapor from the turret gun.
Grasping the rail tightly in his excitement, his heart beating like a trip-hammer, Phil gazed through the quickly dissolving smoke. The sonorous screech of the shell in his ears, he strained his eyes to pick up the huge projectile, travelling nearly a half a mile a second toward the hostile fort.
Grasping the binoculars from Langdon’s hand, he raised them swiftly to his eyes. A black dot appeared, upon which the lad focused his attention, as if to lose it might mean a miss. He saw the bird-like bolt rise high above the white stone emplacements, and knew on the instant, from his long experience watching just such shells at the peaceful drill of target practice, that the messenger of destruction, filled with an explosive that would scatter death and consternation in its path, would go true to its aim.
“Right on top of the emplacement!” he shouted excitedly a half second before a liquid fire flashed on the parapet of the forts, while tons of earth and rock were scattered in every direction.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE FORTS SURRENDER
While Phil had been gazing spellbound at the half ton shell, fired by O’Neil with such startling effect, Sydney was watching excitedly a small squad of Chinese soldiers toiling painfully upward from the gun emplacements.
When the roar of discharge shook the air he had seen these small black figures throw themselves behind the jutting rocks, and after the missile had exploded upon the parapets of the forts, hurling by its tremendous force a large gun backward from its substantial mountings, these persistent dots of men again appeared to view, creeping steadily upward. What did it mean? Were these men deserting their guns?
Sydney heard his captain give the order to reload, and knew that within the minute another shell would be speeding toward the enemy. The foremost Chinaman had now reached the foot of the great flagstaff, and the next second, to the lad’s delight, he saw the yellow banner flutter slowly to the ground.
“They are striking their colors,” he cried excitedly.
All eyes turned in glad surprise toward the flagstaff to the right of and above the gun emplacements.