th fear. They asked him if he had seen another car like
theirs, but he could only stutter. One of them laughed, and said, 'I'll
work a miracle, and cure him.' Then he whipped out a revolver and shot
the boy dead. Some soldiers with badges on their arms saw this. One of
them yelled, '_Man hat geschossen_' ('The people have been shooting'),
though it was their own officer who fired, and he and the others threw
little bombs into the nearest cottages, and squirted petrol in through
the windows. Madame Didier, who has been bedridden for years, was burnt
alive in that way. They have a regular corps of men for the job. Then,
'to punish the town,' as they said, they took twenty of our chief
citizens, lined them up in the market-place, and fired volleys at them.
There was Dupont, and the Abbe Courvoisier, and Monsieur Philippe the
notary, and--_ah, mon Dieu_, I don't know--all my old friends. The
Prussian beasts will come here soon.--Wife! Leontine! how can I save
you? They are devils--devils, I tell you--devils mad with drink and
anger. A few scratches in chalk on our gate won't hold them back. They
may be here any moment. You, mademoiselle, had better go with Leontine
here and drown yourselves in the mill dam. Heaven help me, that is the
only advice a father can give!"

Dalroy turned. Irene stood close behind. She knew when he left the
garret, and had followed swiftly. She confessed afterwards that she
thought he meant to carry out his self-denying project, and leave her.

"You are mistaken, Monsieur Joos," she said now, speaking with an
aristocratic calm which had an immediate effect on the miller and his
distraught womenfolk. "You do not know the German soldier. He is a
machine that obeys orders. He will kill, or not kill, exactly as he is
bidden. If your house has been excepted it is absolutely safe."

She was right. The mill was one of the places in Vise spared by German
malice that day. A well-defined section of the little town was given up
to murder, and loot, and fire, and rapine. Scenes were enacted which are
indescribable. A brutal soldiery glutted its worst passions on an
unarmed and defenceless population. The hour was near when some
hysterical folk would tell of the apparition of angels at Mons; but old
Henri Joos was unquestionably right when he spoke of the presence of
devils in Vise.

CHAPTER V

BILLETS

The miller's volcanic outburst seemed to have exhausted itself; he
subsided to the oaken bench