Page:Air Service Boys over the Rhine.djvu/55



and Jack Parmly alighted from the taxicab more quickly than they had gotten in. The chauffeur was anxiously scanning the sky. Excited men, women and children were rushing about, and yet it was not such excitement as might be caused by the first shelling of the beautiful city. It was more, as Tom said afterward, as though the populace had been taken by surprise by a new method in the same kind of warfare, for an occasional German Zeppelin or a bombing aircraft had, before this, dropped explosives. To these the French had become as much accustomed as one ever can to such terrible means of attack.

But this was different. There was no sign of a Hun aircraft, and, as the chauffeur had said, no police warning had been sounded.

"What is it?" asked Jack.

"It is a bombardment, that is all I know," replied the taxicab driver. He spoke in French, a language which the two boys used fairly well, Rh