p this opportunity for the
heaving of a brick. Were Brussels boys made of flabbier stuff? Not
if Belgian sons were of the same stripe as Belgian fathers. The fact
then that none of these German Scouts were massacred, as was
to be expected by all the rules of the game, showed how the threat
of reprisals operated to curb the strongest natural impulses of the
spirit. I presumed that one of these Scouts was speeding
posthaste to the Ambassador with my note, but he never did.

I am not berating the Germans. They were running their own war
according to their own code. In this code reporters, onlookers, and
uplifters of any brand were anathema.

We had no rights. Our only right was to the convictions within our
minds, provided we kept them there. I believe that were it not for
the surmises of the English lieutenant who took them to the
Ambassador I would be in prison yet. On second thought, I
wouldn't, either. I couldn't have endured the strain much longer. If I
had been caged in there a few hours more than I was, in my
nervous tension I probably would have vented my sense of
outraged justice by assaulting one of the officers myself. I wouldn't
have had a long time then to speculate upon the immortality of the
soul. I would have possessed first-hand information. One can
understand why, for their own protection, the Germans imposed
their iron laws upon the Belgians with their terrible penalties. What
is hard to understand is the long-suffering patience and self-
restraint of the Belgians. Occasionally some high-spirited or high-
strung fellow was no longer able to keep the lid on the volcano of
hatred and rage seething within him. This blowup brought down,
not only upon his own head, but upon the whole community, the
most hideous reprisals.

By the time my writing was completed the men were pretty well
settled down for the night. On the outside the roaring of the
Austrian guns, which for days had been bombarding their way into
Antwerp, now became less constant; less and less frequently the
hoarse commands of the officers, mingled with the rumbling of the
automobiles, came up from the courtyard below. At midnight the
only sounds were the groans and moans of the twisting sleepers
and the measured tread of the sentry as he paced up and down
the hall, his silhouette darkening at regular intervals the glass door
at the end of our little room.

I was placed in a. sort of adjoining closet with six others. A motley
mixture indee