fiercely and in less than twenty minutes the whole
affair was demolished.

Safe exit from the city was now cut off. A Red Cross officer whom I met
when standing by the quay had been a spectator of the blowing up of the
bridge.

"My God!" he said, running toward me, "it is awful!"

"How are you going to get out?" I asked him.

"I'm going to stay here and look after my wounded," he replied.

In further talk with him I learned that the greater part of the second
line of forts had fallen at midday the previous day and that there was
nothing then to stop the Germans entering the city save a handful of
Belgian soldiers in three or four forts. At 8 o'clock a shell struck the
Town Hall.

Fox had now joined me, and we took refuge in the cellars beneath the
Town Hall. So far as I could gather, the remaining inhabitants of
Antwerp must have assembled about this neighborhood, groups taking
refuge in small and stuffy cellars, where developments were anxiously
awaited. There must have been hundreds of people sheltered underground,
and they included the Mexican and Dominican Consuls. Why these stayed I
do not know, as none of their people were left behind. They were the
only Consuls remaining in Antwerp.

About 8:15 o'clock another shell struck the Town Hall, shattering the
upper story and breaking every window in the place. That was the German
way of telling the Burgomaster to hurry up. There was a tense feeling as
we waited for tidings of some sort or other. A quarter of an hour later
M. De Vos went out in his motor car toward the German line to discuss
conditions on which the city should be surrendered.

Another shell struck a furrier's shop opposite the Town Hall and the
place burst into flames. Several of the gendarmes who had stayed behind
were occupants of cellars, and two of them immediately rushed out to
force a way into the shop in order that they might extinguish the fire.
They found the door locked. It took them ten minutes to force an
entrance. By this time the fire was burning fiercely, and at great
personal risk one of the gendarmes made his way to the top floor of the
premises, and there he endeavored to beat out the flames with a piece of
timber torn from the roof. His efforts were futile, and he called for
water. Soon a Flemish woman brought him two pailfuls, which Fox had
carried to the house, and after half an hour's labor the fire was
extinguished.

The proprietor of the shop was among the people in th