THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW

CHAPTER I

GETTING IN

Early in November, 1915, I sailed from New York to Rotterdam.

I spent nearly a month in Holland completing my preparations, and
at length one grey winter morning I took the step that I dreaded.
I had left Germany six months before with a feeling that to enter
it again and get safely out was hopeless, foolish, dangerous,
impossible. But at any rate I was going to try.

At Zevenaar, while the Dutch customs officials were examining my
baggage, I patronised the youth selling apple cakes and coffee, for
after several months' absence from Germany my imagination had been
kindled to contemplate living uncomfortably on short rations for
some time as the least of my troubles. Furthermore, the editorial
opinion vouchsafed in the Dutch newspaper which I had bought at
Arnhem was that Austria's reply to the "Ancona" Note made a break
with America almost a certainty. Consequently as the train rolled
over the few remaining miles to the frontier I crammed down my
apple cakes, resolved to face the unknown on a full stomach.

The wheels ground under the brakes, I pulled down the window with a
bang and looked out no longer upon the soft rolled military cap of
Holland but upon the business-like spiked helmet of Germany. I
steeled myself. There was no backing out now. I had crossed the