ouse, and there amidst the
charred ruins stood a door or a wall bearing the mocking
inscription, "Nicht Anbrennen."

Another house, belonging to Madame Louise Bal, bore the words,
"Protected; Gute alte Leute hier" (good old people here). A great
shell from a distant battery had totally disregarded this sign and
had torn through the parlor, exploding in the back yard, ripping the
clothes from the line, but touching neither of the inmates. As the
Chinese ambassador pertinently remarked when reassured by
Whitlock that the Germans would not bombard the embassies,
"Ah! but a cannon has no eyes."

These houses stood up like lone survivors above the wreckage
wrought by fire and shell, and by contrast served to emphasize the
dismal havoc everywhere. "So this was once a city," one mused to
himself; "and these streets, now sounding with the footfalls of
some returning sentry, did they once echo with the roar of traffic?
And those demolished shops, were they once filled with the babble
of the traders? Over yonder in that structure, which looks so much
like a church, did the faithful once come to pray and to worship
God? Can it be that these courtyards, now held in the thrall of
death-like silence, once rang to the laughter of the little children?"
One said to himself, "Surely this is some wild dream. Wake up."

But hardly a dream, for here were the ruins of a real city, and fresh
ruins, too. Still curling up from the church was smoke from the
burning rafters, and over there the hungry dogs, and the stragglers
mournfully digging something out of the ruins. However preposterous
it seemed, none the less it was a city that yesterday ran high with
the tide of human life. And thousands of people, when they recall
the lights and shadows, the pains and raptures, which make up the
thing we call life, will think of Termonde. Thousands of people,
when they think of home and all the tender memories that cluster
round that word, say "Termonde."' And now where Termonde was
there is a big black ragged spot--an ugly gaping wound in the
landscape. There are a score of other wounds like that.

There are thousands of them.

There is one bleeding in every Belgian heart.

The sight of their desolated cities cut the soldiers to the quick.

They turned the names of those cities into battle cries. Shouting
"Remember Termonde and Louvain," these Belgians sprang from
the trenches and like wild men flung themselves upon the foe.

Chapter XI