Such terrors held her when she lay sleepless or only half drowsing in the dark; they formed the background for more personal affrights visualizing her own friends--Hubert and Milicent and Mrs. Mayhew, French girls whom she had known, and many others. Most particularly her terror dwelt upon Gerry Hull. She had ventured to inquire of the Germans regarding his fate; at first they refused information, then they told her he was dead, next that he was a prisoner; and they even supplied her with a paragraph from one of their papers boasting of the fact and making capital of his capture. He was in one of their camps, to be treated by the Germans--how? Her dismay would dwell with him; then, suddenly considering her own fate, she would sit up, stark, and grasping tight to the sides of her cot. Her mother and her sisters in Onarga--would they ever know? Cynthia Gail’s people--what, at last, would they learn? A sudden resounding shock, accompanied by a dull rolling sound, vibrated through the air. A great gun was being tested somewhere nearby, Ruth thought. No; they would not do that at night. Then it was an explosion at the chemical works; something had gone wrong. The shocks and the sounds increased. Also they drew nearer. Now guns--small, staccato, barking guns--began firing; shells smashed high in the air. Ruth had dragged her chair below her window and was standing upon it. Ah! Now she could see the flashes and lights in the sky; an air raid was on. There within sight--not a mile off--and fighting, were allied machines! Transcendent exaltation intoxicated her. The bombs bursting in air! The stanza of the glorious song of her country sang in her soul with full understanding of its great feeling. An American prisoner long ago had written those wonderful words--written them, she remembered, when lying a captive upon an enemy vessel and when fearing for the fate of the fort manned by his people. But ... the rocket’s red glare, The bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night That our flag was still there. The burst of these bombs and the flash of these rockets brought the same leaping glory to Ruth. Not far away in France her flag yet flew high; her people yet battled, and boldly, defiantly, if they could send here over German soil such a squadron of the air to this attack. The bombs and the guns and the rockets continued. Sometimes they swept closer; but swiftly they retreated. Now the motor clatter of a single airplane separated itself and became louder than all the distant sound. This sound seemed to circle and swoop over the _schloss_; and--Ruth swayed at the buffet of a tremendous shock; she caught at the wall to steady herself; but the wall, too, was quivering. A bomb had burst nearby; near enough, indeed, to destroy some of the building, for through the tremors of the detonation she heard the crash of falling walls, the yells and screams of terror.