houlders and let us go. The two
sentries who had kept their rifles pointed at me lowered them to a
more comfortable angle. A temporary sense of cold down my back retired
again to my feet, whence it had risen. We went over the ancient
drawbridge, with its chains by which it may be raised, and were free.
But our departure was without enthusiasm. I looked back. Some eight
sentries and officers were staring after us and muttering among
themselves.

Afterward I crossed that bridge many times. They grew accustomed to
me, but they evidently thought me quite mad. Always they protested and
complained, until one day the word went round that the American lady
had been received by the King. After that I was covered with the
mantle of royalty. The sentries saluted as I passed. I was of the
elect.

There were other sentries until the Belgian frontier was passed. After
that there was no further challenging. The occasional distant roar of
a great gun could be heard, and two French aeroplanes, winging home
after a reconnaissance over the German lines, hummed overhead. Where
between Calais and Dunkirk there had been an occasional peasant's cart
in the road or labourer in the fields, now the country was deserted,
save for long lines of weary soldiers going to their billets, lines
that shuffled rather than marched. There was no drum to keep them in
step with its melancholy throbbing. Two by two, heads down, laden with
intrenching tools in addition to their regular equipment, grumbling as
the car forced them off the road into the mud that bordered it,
swathed beyond recognition against the cold and dampness, in the
twilight those lines of shambling men looked grim, determined,
sinister.

"We are going through Furnes," said my companion. "It has been shelled
all day, but at dusk they usually stop. It is out of our way, but you
will like to see it."

I said I was perfectly willing, but that I hoped the Germans would
adhere to their usual custom. I felt all at once that, properly
conserved, a long and happy life might lie before me. I mentioned that
I was a person of no importance, and that my death would be of no
military advantage. And, as if to emphasise my peaceful fireside at
home, and dinner at seven o'clock with candles on the table, the fire
re-commenced.

"Artillery," I said with conviction, "seems to me barbarous and
unnecessary. But in a moving automobile--"

It was a wrong move. He hastened to tell me of people riding alon