Even the bird ceased struggling against his bonds, only the rumble of the cannonade and the irregular crashes of the replying guns ripping apart the stillness.
"It is much," the woman said at last, in a faraway voice, "for the Fates to show on the first day of the war. Look you," she continued, "the signs are clear.
"Our own dear Belgium will suffer, will suffer so terribly that for many years to come she will grope among the nations as one that has been blinded, but not as one that has lost courage or is mortally hurt. France will suffer, even unto death, but her spirit will be undefeated to the last. Germany shall come fluttering down to ruin only when a young America throws herself upon a famished and half-exhausted Germany."
Croquier listened with arrested breath. To him, every word of the prophecy was a gospel.
"Then America will come to the aid of Belgium, Madame?" the boy queried, eagerly.
The woman did not reply. She tottered back and rested her hand heavily upon the window-sill, as though her strength were spent.
Horace moved restlessly, with a certain disquieting fear of the supernatural, although his heedless American nature disregarded superstition. Could it be true that one might look into the future?
The woman spoke again.
"Croquier," she said, "you are a Frenchman. Take you the captive Kaiser with his withered pinion. See that it does not escape. You understand? It must never escape. Look you! Never!"
"Never!" said the hunchback, in a deep solemn voice that registered a vow.