e note of grief
in their voices. So, with a hearty hand-shake and wishes for the
best of luck, they waved adieu to me as I went swinging out on the
highroad to Liege.

Chapter VI

In The Black Wake Of The War

A half mile and I came for the first time actually face to face with
the wastage of war. There was what once was Mouland, the little
village I had seen burning the night before. The houses stood
roofless and open to the sky, like so many tombstones over a
departed people. The whitewashed outer walls were all shining in
the morning sun. Inside they were charred black, or blazing yet
with coals from the fire still slowly burning its way through wood
and plaster. Here and there a house had escaped the torch.

By some miracle in the smashed window of one of these houses a
bright red geranium blossomed. It seemed to cry for water, but I
dared not turn aside, for fear of a bullet from a lurking sentry. In
another a sewing-machine of American make testified to the thrift
and progressiveness of one household. In the last house as I left
the village a rocking-horse with its head stuck through the open
door smiled its wooden smile, as if at any rate it could keep good
cheer even though the roofs might fall.

My road now wound into the open country; and I was heartily glad
of it, for the hedges and the houses at Mouland provided fine
coverts for prowling German foragers or for Belgians looking for
revenge. Dead cows and horses and dogs with their sides ripped
open by bullets lay along the wayside. The roads were deep
printed with the hoofs of the cavalry. The grain-fields were
flattened out. Nine little crosses marked the place where nine
soldiers of the Kaiser fell.

This smiling countryside, teeming with one of the densest
populations in the world, had been stripped clean of every
inhabitant. Along the wasted way not the sign of a civilian, or for
that matter even a soldier, was to be seen. I was glad even of the
presence of a pig which, with her litter, was enjoying the unwonted
pleasure of rooting out her morning meal in a rich flower-garden.
She did not reciprocate, however, with any such fellow feeling.
Perhaps of late she had seen enough of the doings of the genus
homo. Surveying me as though I had been the author of all this
destruction, she gave a frightened snort and plunged into a nearby
thicket.

I craved companionship of any living creature to break the spell of
death and silence. I was des