thought
of the Colonel and the rest, but at last my comrade; reached the place
and went in, and I was free to try for the farm.

[Illustration: VICE ADMIRAL SIR DAVID BEATTY

Youngest of British Admirals, Whose Fleet Sank the _Bluecher_, and Won
the Battle of the Bight of Heligoland

_(From the painting by Philip Alexius Laszlo de Lombos)_]

[Illustration: COUNT VON REVENTLOW

The German Naval Critic Who Has Intimated That the United States Might
Be a Divided Nation in Case of War]

On my way I met a friend and asked him to join me. At the time I was
thinking of you all, and it was not till later that I got frightened.
There were five horses at the gate of the farm. I shifted them and
showed my friend the entrance to the cellar. It was narrow, and he lost
time through his knapsack, and these are the occasions when your life
depends on seconds. I heard the scream that I know only too well, and
guessed where the beast would lodge, and called out to him "That's for
us." I shrank back with my knapsack over my head and tried to bury
myself in the corner among the coal.

I had no time, though. The shell reached, smashed down part of the
house, and burst in the basement a couple of yards from me. I heard no
more, but stone, plaster, and bricks fell all around me on the coal
heap. I was gasping, but found myself untouched. I got up and saw the
poultry struggling and the horses struck down. I ran to the cellar, with
the same luck as my friend.

My knapsack caught me. A shell screamed a second time again for us, and
it struck, wallop, on the gable, while the ruins fell around my head. I
pulled at my knapsack so vigorously that I fell into the cellar, and
some of our men who were there called "Here's a poor brute done in." Not
a bit of it. I was not touched then either.... At last the bombardment
stopped, and we all got out. I noticed about forty hens. Some were
pulped. Others had had their heads and legs cut off. In the muddle three
horses lay dead. Their saddles were in ribbons. Equipment, revolvers,
swords, all that had been left above the cellar had vanished, but there
were bits of them to be seen on the roof. My rifle, which had been torn
from my hands, was in fragments, and I was stupefied at not having been
hit. I noticed, however, that my wrappings that were rolled around my
knapsack had been pierced by a splinter of shell that had stuck an it.
Later in the evening when I started cutting at my bread the knife
stu