Page:America Fallen!.djvu/116

104 Driven by the instinct of flight, he rushed around the platform to the north side, and, looking down, saw that the buildings were obscured by a cloud of bricks, dust, and broken terra cotta, which fell with a prolonged roar, like a fall of Cyclopean hail, upon the roofs and pavement far below. Another crash! Again the tower staggered under the blow!

He jumped for the elevator. Yes, it was intact. A few floors down it stopped. He managed to undo the door, crawled out, and ran down the stairway. Three flights below he stood dumfounded. The stairs ended in space, and through a gaping hole, where the hollow-tile flooring had been blasted entirely away, he saw that the whole of two stories, with their floors, outer walls, and inside partitions, had been blown clear into space, leaving the skeleton of the building—columns, floor beams, and braces—stripped as clean