d full of the spirit of adventure and I wanted to
visit the windmill again. I got a pal to go with me and endeavored to
make it, but the flares were steadily burning and the snipers were so
busy we had to lie low. Again I went to the French battery and told the
officer commanding of my suspicions about the windmill. A smile of
intelligence and gratefulness lighted up his fine face. "Monsieur, we
shall see what we shall see," and he ordered a shell into the heart of
the structure, bringing it down in splinters. Then we made for the ruins
and found the body of a man dressed in an Algerian uniform; I looked him
over carefully; he was the artist I had met in the farmhouse at our
former station.

There remained still the case of the old man in whose house we had
discovered the heliograph and the pigeons. And the gendarmes were again
sent for and the Belgian farmer was haled before the officer. With white
face and streaming eyes he told the French Captain of the gendarmes that
this man had come to him and told him that if he didn't permit him to go
into his home, he would instantly signal for the shells and he and his
family and buildings would be blown to eternity. The old man was
permitted to go, as the French officer was satisfied he was sincere, but
that he was utterly powerless to prevent the spy carrying out his plans.

In conversation with us later, the farmer told us that the Algerian had
brought pigeons with him; that he had written notes, put them in the
little cup fastened to the bird's foot and sent some of them off, the
others remaining in the box when the Algerian went upstairs. "I could
hear the bricks falling, but he called to us not to come upstairs," went
on the old man. "Shortly afterwards a man dressed in the uniform of a
British soldier came, and he too went upstairs; he was carrying a bag.
When he came in he asked if I wanted coffee and I answered 'No.' When he
came in the Algerian called down to send him up, and he too went up.
Presently the British soldier left and a few minutes afterwards your
battery started firing. Then out ran the Algerian, saying he was going
to the windmill and warned all of us on pain of losing our lives, not to
come near the mill. That is the last I saw of him, Messieurs, until this
evening when I see his dead body.

"I am heart and soul with you, Messieurs; I know what you are doing for
us and for Belgium; but you can see that I had no chance whatever to
communicate with you