“_Ecco._ The men were all massed ready on and under the terrace, and nothing remained but the making of the connection firing the mine. I took one long look around and then threw over the electric switch closing the circuit. Every one seemed to be holding his breath as he waited. One, two, three seconds passed in a silence so intense that I heard the sharp ‘ping’ of the water dripping from the roof of the chamber and striking the pool it had formed below. “Then, before any other sound was audible, the whole mountain gave a quick convulsive jerk, strong enough to throw some of the men off their feet. A heavy grinding rumble in the earth came with a shivering that followed the jerk, but the real roar of the explosion (from the outside) was not audible for a second or two later. Only those watching from a distance of several kilometres saw the right-hand pinnacle of the Castelletto give a sudden heave, and then sink out of sight in a cloud of dust and smoke. “In addition to the honour of firing the mine that of leading my men into the crater had also been reserved for me, and as soon as I heard the roar of the explosion I gave the order for them to follow me up into the tunnel. Well----” he paused and ran his laughing eyes around the grinning circle of his fellow officers, “that is about as far as my evidence is good for anything. As I went clambering up the slippery steps of the tunnel an almost solid wall of choking fumes struck me in the face, and I--and all of my men except those near or outside of the portal--dropped coughing in my tracks.” “Had the mine blown back through the tamping?” I asked. “Not exactly,” he replied, his rueful smile becoming almost sheepish, as of one who had allowed himself to become the victim of a prank. “The Austrians had a big store of asphyxiating bombs on hand to use against us, and these, exploded by our mine, vented their spite on friend and foe alike. We were not able to occupy the crater for twenty-four hours. “I am glad to say that I spent what would otherwise have been an intolerably anxious interval unconscious in the hospital. By the time I had been revived a friendly breeze had thinned the gas sufficiently to allow our Alpini to move into the crater and reap--in spite of the delay--every advantage we had at any time counted upon from the operation. Our most cherished capture was the ‘perforator’--practically intact--with which the Austrians were driving an almost completed counter-mine directly under us.” “The nervous tension must have been rather strong toward the end, wasn’t it?” I asked; “especially when you knew the enemy had at last got your work definitely located and was rushing his counter-mine?”