night's sleep. Besides, it
is so late in the day that we couldn't get out of town before dark if
we tried."

Following this plan, the whole family went to bed at dusk, but they
were not destined to enjoy the quiet sleep they longed for. The night
was warm, and the cabin small, so Father De Smet and Joseph, as well as
the Twins, spread bedding on the deck and went to sleep looking up at
the stars.

They had slept for some hours when they were suddenly aroused by the
sound of a terrific explosion. Instantly they sprang to their feet,
wide awake, and Mother De Smet came rushing from the cabin with the
babies screaming in her arms.

"What is it now? What is it?" she cried.

"Look! Look!" cried Jan.

He pointed to the sky. There, blazing with light, like a great
misshapen moon, was a giant airship moving swiftly over the city. As it
sailed along, streams of fire fell from it, and immediately there
followed the terrible thunder of bursting bombs. When it passed out of
sight, it seemed as if the voice of the city itself must rise in
anguish at the terrible destruction left in its wake.

Just what that destruction was, Father De Smet did not wish to see.
"This is a good place to get away from," he said to the frightened
group cowering on the deck of the "Old Woman" after the bright terror
had disappeared. When morning came he lost no time in making the best
speed he could away from the doomed city of Antwerp which they had
thought so safe.

When they had left the city behind them and the boat was slowly making
its way through the quiet back channels of the Scheldt the world once
more seemed really peaceful to the wandering children. Their way lay
over still waters and beside green pastures, and as they had no
communication with the stricken regions of Belgium, they had no news of
the progress of the war, until, some days later, the boat docked at
Rotterdam, and it became necessary to decide what should be done next.
There they learned that they had barely escaped the siege of Antwerp,
which had begun with the Zeppelin raid.

Father De Smet was now obliged to confront the problem of what to do
with his own family, for, since Antwerp was now in the hands of the
enemy, he could no longer earn his living in the old way. Under these
changed conditions he could not take care of Jan and Marie, so one sad
day they said good-bye to good Mother De Smet, to Joseph and the
babies, and went with Father De Smet into the city of R