in lonely state to Tilbury, where the boat was waiting.

As we got aboard the _Brussels_, her sister ship, the _Dresden_, just in
from Antwerp, pulled up alongside, and Mrs. Sherman, wife of the
Vice-Consul, called me to the rail to give me the latest news. She said
that everything was going to pieces, that some of the forts had fallen,
and that Antwerp might be under bombardment before we got there. Then
she went ashore in peace, and we went below to seek the seclusion that
the cabin grants, and fortify ourselves for the bombardment.

[Illustration: View of the Meuse at Huy]

[Illustration: Refugees fleeing toward Dunkirk before the German
advance, after the fall of Antwerp
_Copyright by the International News Service_]

We got under way during the night and dropped down to the mouth of the
Thames, where we lay to until daylight, before starting across. The
first sound I heard was a hail from a torpedo-boat destroyer, which sent
an officer aboard to lay our course for us through the British mine
fields. We made our zigzag course across the North Sea and fetched up at
Flushing, where we picked up a pilot to take us through Dutch waters.
When darkness overtook us we were just about on the Belgian frontier
line and had to lie to for the night, getting to Antwerp Tuesday morning
about nine.

We found the place in a great hubbub--everybody packed and ready to
leave. They had been on the point of departure since Friday, and the
uncertainty had got on everybody's nerves--and no wonder.

Several thousand British Marines had arrived and were doing good work,
holding back the Germans, while the exhausted Belgians pulled themselves
together for the evacuation. The Belgian forces had been fighting with
little rest and no sleep until they were physically incapable of further
resistance. How human strength held out so long is the great marvel.
Winston Churchill was in the Legation when I arrived, with General
Rawlinson and Colonel Seeley.

After a call at the Foreign Office, most of which had been installed on
a boat in the river, I went to the Palace to see General Jungbluth. He
was not there, but Countess de Caraman-Chimay said that the King wanted
to see me.

I was taken straight up to him in his Council Chamber, where I found him
seated at a great table covered with maps and papers. He pushed them
aside wearily as I came in, and rose to greet me. He talked at some
length on the war and the ordeal of Belgium, but was ch