the faces of the two officers with me. There
could be no question as to their attitude. It was a personal loss they
had suffered. The loss of their homes they had accepted stoically. But
this was much more. It was the loss of their art, their history, their
tradition. And it could not be replaced.

The firing was steady, unemotional.

As the wind died down we ventured into the ruins of the Cloth Hall
itself. The roof is gone, of course. The building took fire from the
bombardment, and what the shells did not destroy the fire did. Melted
lead from ancient gutters hung in stalactites. In one place a wall was
still standing, with a bit of its mural decoration. I picked up a bit
of fallen gargoyle from under the fallen tower and brought it away. It
is before me now.

It is seven hundred and fifteen years since that gargoyle was lifted
into its place. The Crusades were going on about that time; the robber
barons were sallying out onto the plains on their raiding excursions.
The Norman Conquest had taken place. From this very town of Ypres had
gone across the Channel "workmen and artisans to build churches and
feudal castles, weavers and workers of many crafts."

In those days the Yperlee, a small river, ran open through the town.
But for many generations it has been roofed over and run under the
public square.

It was curious to stand on the edge of a great shell hole and look
down at the little river, now uncovered to the light of day for the
first time in who knows how long.

In all that chaos, with hardly a wall intact, at the corner of what
was once the cathedral, stood a heroic marble figure of Burgomaster
Vandenpeereboom. It was quite untouched and as placid as the little
river, a benevolent figure rising from the ruins of war.

"They have come like a pestilence," said the General. "When they go
they will leave nothing. What they will do is written in what they
have done."

Monsieur le Commandant had disappeared. Now he returned triumphant,
carrying a great bundle in both arms.

"I have been to what was the house of a relative," he explained. "He
has told me that in the cellar I would find these. They will interest
you."

"These" proved to be five framed photographs of the great paintings
that had decorated the walls of the great Cloth Hall. Although they
had been hidden in a cellar, fragments of shell had broken and torn
them. But it was still possible to gain from them a faint idea of the
interior beau