re and West-end of Berlin, where the _cafe_ lights were
bright and tinkling music made restricted menu-cards easier to bear.

Suddenly the oppressive feeling of the East-end was dispelled by
the strains of military music drawing closer in a street near by.
I hurried towards it, and saw a band marching at the head of two
companies of wounded soldiers, their bandages showing white under
the bright street lights of Berlin.

The men were returning to their hospital off the Prenzlauer Allee
from a day's outing on the River Spree. Scores of followers
swelled to hundreds. The troubles of the day were forgotten. Eyes
brightened as the throng kept step with the martial music. A roll
of drum, a flare of brass, and the crowd, scattered voices at
first, and then swelling in a grand crescendo, sang _Deutschland
uber Alles_. To-morrow they would complain again of food shortage
and sigh for peace, but tonight they would dream of victory.

CHAPTER XXVI

IN THE DEEPENING SHADOW

A little, bent old woman, neat, shrivelled, with clear, healthy eye
and keen intelligence, was collecting acorns in the park outside
the great Schloss, the residence of von Oppen, a relative of the
Police President of Berlin.

I had walked long and was about to eat my picnic lunch, and stopped
and spoke with her. We soon came to the one topic in Germany--the
war. She was eighty-four years of age, she told me, and she worked
for twelve hours a day. Her mother had seen Napoleon pass through
the red-roofed village hard by. She well remembered what she
called "the Bismarck wars." She was of the old generation, for she
spoke of the Kaiser as "the King."

"No," she said, "this war is not going like the Bismarck wars--not
like the three that happened in 1864, 1866, 1870, within seven
years when I was a young woman." She was referring, of course, to
Denmark, Austria, and France. "We have lost many in our
village--food is hard to get." Here she pointed to the two thin
slices of black bread which were to form her mid-day meal. She did
not grumble at her twelve hours' day in the fields, which were in
addition to the work of her little house, but she wished that she
could have half an hour in which to read history.

Her belief was that the war would be terminated by the Zeppelins.
"When our humane King really gives the word, the English ships and
towns will all be destroyed by our Zeppelins. He is holding back
his great secret of destruction