point has been quite overlooked. In recounting the
atrocities wrought by Prussian Imperialism, no mention is made of
those that it has committed upon its own people. And yet at any
rate a few Germans suffered in the claws of the German eagle
quite as cruelly as any Belgians did. One fine morning in
September three Germans came careening into Ghent in a great
motor car. They were dazed to find no evidence of their army
which they supposed was in possession. Before the men became
aware of their mistake, a Belgian mitrailleuse poured a stream of
lead into their midst, killing two of them outright. The third German,
with a ball in his neck, was rescued by Van Hee and placed under
the protection of the American flag.

Incidentally that summary action, followed by a quick visit to the
German general in his camp on the outskirts, saved the city. That
is a long story. It is told in Alexander Powell's "Fighting in
Flanders," but it suffices here to state that by a pact between the
Belgian burgomaster of Ghent and the German commandant it
was understood that the wounded man was not to be considered a
prisoner, but under the jurisdiction of the American Consulate.

A week after this incident Van Hee paid his first visit to this
wounded man in the Belgian hospital. He was an honest fellow of
about forty--the type of working-man who had aspired to nothing
beyond a chance to toil and raise a family for the Fatherland.
Weltpolitik, with its vaunting boast of "World-power or Downfall,"
was meaningless to him and his comrades gathered in the beer-
gardens on a Sunday.

Suddenly out of this quiet, uneventful life he was called to the
colors and sent killing and burning through the Belgian villages.
His officers had told him that it would be a sorry thing for any
German soldier to be captured, for these Belgians, maddened by
the pillage of their country, would take a terrible revenge upon any
luckless wretches that fell into their hands. Now, more suddenly
than anything else had ever happened in his life, a bullet had
stabbed him in the throat and he found himself a prisoner at the
mercy of these dreaded Belgians.

"Why are they tending me so carefully during these last seven
days?" "Are they getting me ready for the torturing?" "Are they
making me well in order that I may suffer all the more?" Grim
speculation of that kind must have been running through his
simple mind. For when we opened the door of his room, he slunk
cowering ov