stopped me, if they could not read, the red seal satisfied them; if they
were officers and could read, they cursed me with strange, unclean
oaths, and ordered me, in the German equivalent, to beat it. It was a
delightful walk. I had had no sleep the night before and had eaten
nothing, and, though I had cut away most of my shoe, I could hardly
touch my foot to the road. Whenever in the villages I tried to bribe any
one to carry my knapsack or to give me food, the peasants ran from
me. They thought I was a German and talked Flemish, not French. I
was more afraid of them and their shotguns than of the Germans,
and I never entered a village unless German soldiers were entering
or leaving it. And the Germans gave me no reason to feel free from
care. Every time they read my pass they were inclined to try me all
over again, and twice searched my knapsack.

After that happened the second time I guessed my letter to the
President of France might prove a menace, and, tearing it into little
pieces, dropped it over a bridge, and with regret watched that
historical document from the ex-President of one republic to the
President of another float down the Sambre toward the sea. By noon
I decided I would not be able to make the distance. For twenty-four
hours I had been without sleep or food, and I had been put through
an unceasing third degree, and I was nearly out. Added to that, the
chance of my losing the road was excellent; and if I lost the road the
first German who read my pass was ordered by it to shoot me. So I
decided to give myself up to the occupants of the next German car
going toward Brussels and ask them to carry me there under arrest. I
waited until an automobile approached, and then stood in front of it
and held up my pass and pointed to the red seal. The car stopped,
and the soldiers in front and the officer in the rear seat gazed at me in
indignant amazement. The officer was a general, old and kindly