to be seduced.]

Lest there should arise any misunderstanding, I complete the picture by
stating my conviction, based on intimate talks with Belgian men and
women, that the population as a whole are keeping a firm upper lip, and
that attempts by the Germans to seduce them from their allegiance by
blandishment and bribery will fail as surely as the efforts of
frightfulness.

Mr. Whitaker's account of his escape into Holland closes thus:

[Sidenote: Nearing Holland.]

When we drew near to the wires, just before midnight, we lay on the
ground and wriggled along until we were within fifty yards of Holland.
There we lay for what seemed to be an interminable time. We saw patrols
passing. An officer came along and inspected the sentries. Everything
was oppressively quiet.

[Sidenote: Through the electrified barbed wire.]

Each sentry moved to and fro over a distance of a couple of hundred
yards. Opposite the place where we lay two of them met. Choosing his
opportunity, one of my comrades, who had provided himself with rubber
gloves some weeks before for this critical moment, rushed forward to the
spot where the two sentries had just met. Scrambling through barbed wire
and over an unelectrified wire, he grasped the electrified wires and
wriggled between them. We came close on his heels. He held the deadly
electrified wires apart with lengths of thick plate glass with which he
had come provided while first my other companions and then I crawled
through. Before the sentries returned we had run some hundreds of yards
into No Man's Land between the electrified wires and the real Dutch
frontier.

[Sidenote: Arrival at Rotterdam.]

Only one danger remained. We had no certainty that the Dutch frontier
guards would not hand us back to the Germans. We took no risks, though
it meant wading through a stream waist deep. Our troubles were now
practically over. By rapid stages we proceeded to Rotterdam.

I was without money. My watch I had given to the Belgian villager in
whose cottage I had found refuge. My clothes were shabby from frequent
soakings and hard wear. I had shaved only once in Belgium, and a stubby
growth of beard did not improve my general appearance.

[Sidenote: Sent on to London.]

At Rotterdam I reported myself to the British Consul. I was treated with
the utmost kindness. My expenses during the next four or five days,
while I waited for a boat, were paid and I was given my fare to Hull.
There I was searched b