* * * * *

Let us watch, then, the closing of the prison gates. Up to the beginning
of October, the Belgians, and specially the people of Brussels, had been
kept in a state of suspense by the three sorties of the Belgian army,
which left the shelter of the Antwerp forts to advance towards Vilvorde
and Louvain, a few miles from the capital. At the beginning of
September, the sound of guns came so close that the people rejoiced
openly, thinking that deliverance was at their gates. To sober their
spirit--or to exasperate their patience?--the Governor General ordered
that a few Belgian prisoners, some of them wounded, with their
quickfiring gun drawn by a dog, should be marched through the crowded
streets. The men were covered with dust, their heads wrapped in
blood-stained bandages, and they kept their eyes on the ground as if
ashamed. Some women sobbed on seeing them, others cursed their guards,
others plundered a flower shop and showered flowers upon them. At last
two stalwart workmen shouldered away the escort, and, helped by the
crowd, which paralysed the movements of the Germans, succeeded in
kidnapping the prisoners, and getting them away to the neighbouring
streets. They could never be discovered, and it was the last display of
the kind which the Governor gave to Brussels.

During the siege, people had learnt to recognize the voice of every fort
of Antwerp. They said to each other: "That is Lizele, Wavre Ste.
Catherine, Waelhem." One after the other the Belgian guns were silenced,
first Wavre, then Waelhem ... and the vibrating boom of the German
heavies was heard louder than ever. The listening Bruxellois grew paler,
straining every nerve to catch the voice of Antwerp. It was as if their
own life as a nation was slowly dying away, as if they were mourning
their own agony. But still the valiant spirit of the first days
prevailed. "They will be beaten for all that. What was Antwerp compared
with the Marne? All forts must fall under 'their' artillery. After all,
the nest is empty; the King and the army are safe."

Since those days a kind of reckless indifference has seized the
Belgians. If we must lose everything to gain everything, let us lose
it. The sooner the better. It is the spirit of a poor man burning his
furniture in order to shelter his children from cold, or of a Saint
suffering every physical privation in order to gain the Kingdom of
Heaven. It is an uncanny spirit composed of wi