waters.

The roads were inundated and so we ran along an embankment
which, like a levee, lifted itself above the water wastes. The sun,
sinking down behind the flaming poplars in the west, was touching
the rippling surface into myriad colors. It was like a trip through
Fairyland, or it would have been, were not men on all sides busy
preparing for the bloody shambles.

After these elaborate defensive works the Belgians laughed at any
one taking Antwerp, the impregnable fortress of Western Europe.
The Germans laughed, too. But it was the bass, hollow laugh of
their great guns placed ten to twenty miles away, and pouring into
the city such a hurricane of shell and shrapnel that they forced its
evacuation by the British and the Belgians. Through this vast array
of works which the reception committee had designed for their
slaughter, the Germans came marching in as if on dress parade.

A few shells were even now crashing through Malines and had
played havoc with the carillon in the cathedral tower. During a lull
in the bombardment we climbed a stairway of the belfry where,
above us, balanced great stones which a slight jar would send
tumbling down. On and up we passed vents and jagged holes
which had been ripped through these massive walls as if they
were made of paper. It was enough to carry the weight of one's
somber reflections without the addition of cheerful queries of the
movie-man as to "how would you feel if the German gunners
suddenly turned loose again?"

We gathered in a deal of stone ornaments that had been shot