Although we could hear the wail of shells flying across their wide
parabola both into the town and out from the first ring of forts, few
burst in our part of the city that night, and we walked up as far as the
cathedral without seeing anything but black and silent streets. Every
one in the hotel was up and dressed by this time. Some were for leaving
at once; one family, piloted by the comfortable Belgian servants--far
cooler than any one else--went to the cellar, some gathered about the
grate in the writing-room to watch the night out; the rest of us went
back to bed.

There wasn't much sleep for any one that night. The bombardment kept on
until morning, lulled slightly, as if the enemy might be taking
breakfast, then it continued into the, next day. And now the city--a
busy city of nearly four hundred thousand people--emptied itself in
earnest. Citizens and soldiers, field-guns, motor-trucks, wheelbarrows,
dog-carts, hay-ricks, baby-carriages, droves of people on foot, all
flowing down to the Scheldt, the ferries, and the bridge. They poured
into coal barges, filling the yawning black holes as Africans used to
fill slave-ships, into launches and tugs, and along the roads leading
down the river and southwestward toward Ostend.

One thought with a shudder of what would happen if the Germans dropped a
few of their shells into that helpless mob, and it is only fair to
remember that they did not, although retreating Belgian soldiers were a
part of it, and one of the German aeroplanes, a mere speck against the
blue, was looking calmly down overhead. Nor did they touch the
cathedral, and their agreement not to shell any of the buildings
previously pointed out on a map delivered to them through the American
Legation seemed to be observed.