He no
longer feared the eyes he had feared so long, and what he read in them
now told him that here, too, he was free from that awful suspicion.

But even the greatest will power has its limits, and this was reached
with the man who had rendered almost superhuman assistance. The face of
his father was the last  he saw--then it disappeared as behind a
bloody veil; something hot and wet flowed over his forehead--all became
night around him, and he sank to the ground.

And now resounded a crash, under the appalling force of which the whole
town trembled and quaked. The citadel, whose outlines had just stood
out sharp and clear against the blue sky, was suddenly transformed into
a crater, vomiting forth  and destruction. In those walls a hell
seemed to open; showers of rocks and stones rose high in the air, only
to come down with thunderous clatter, and immediately there leaped and
flickered over all the huge pile of débris a giant pillar of  and
smoke which rose up to the heavens--a terrible sign of flame!

The warning had arrived at the last possible moment. But, in  of
it, there was a sacrifice of life, for whoever had been still in the
neighborhood of the citadel had been crushed or severely