re, and I am going to die
here," she said, with a look of pride upon her kindly face.

Madame Callebaut-Ringoot was her name. During the
bombardment of the town she had retired to the cellar; but when
the Germans entered to burn the city she stood there at the door
watching the flames rolling up from the warehouses and factories
in the distance. Nearer and nearer came the billowing tide of fire. A
fountain of sparks shooting up from a house a few hundred yards
away marked the advance of the firing squad into her street, but
she never wavered. Down the street came the spoilers, relentless,
ruthless, and remorseless, sparing nothing. They came like priests
of the nether world, anointing each house with oil from the petrol
flasks and with a firebrand dedicating it to the flames. Every one,
panic-stricken, fled before them. Every one but this old lady, who
stood there bidding defiance to all the Kaiser's horses and all the
Kaiser's men.

"I saw them smashing in the door of the house across the way,"
said Madame Callebaut, "and when the flames burst forth they
rushed over here, and I fell down on my knees before them, crying
out, 'For the love of Heaven, spare an old woman's house!'"

It must have been a dramatic, soul-curdling sight, with the wail of
the woman rising above the crashing walls and the roaring flames.
And it must have been effective pleading to stop men in their wild
rush lusting to destroy. But Madame Callebaut was endowed with
powerful emotions. Carried away in her recital of the events, she
fell down on her knees before me, wringing her hands and
pleading so piteously that I felt for a moment as if I were a fiendish
Teuton with a firebrand about to set the old lady's house afire. I
can understand how the wildest men capitulated to such pleadings,
and how they came down the steps to write, in big, clear words,

"NICHT ANBRENNEN"
(Do not set fire)

Only they unwittingly wrote it upon her neighbor's walls, thus
saving both houses.

How much a savior of other homes Madame Callebaut had been
Termonde will never know. Certainly she made the firing squad
first pause in the wild debauch of destruction. For frequently now
an undamaged house stood with the words chalked on its front,
"Only harmless old woman lives here; do not burn down."
Underneath were the numbers and initials of the particular corps of
the Kaiser's Imperial Army. Often the flames had committed Lese
majeste by leaping onto the forbidden h