"It is War! Black, treacherous, murderous war!" exclaimed the master, his voice vibrant with passion. "Those shells, now falling on Belgian soil, are the tocsin for world-slaughter.
"You will remember, boys," he continued, his tones deepening, "that I told you, yesterday, how at seven o'clock on Sunday evening, without any provocation whatever, Germany announced she would invade Belgium on the false pretext that France was planning an advance through our territory.
"The dastardly invasion is accomplished. This morning a German force attacked us at Visé, bombarded the town and crossed the Meuse on pontoon bridges."
"How can Germany invade us, sir?" asked Deschamps, the head boy of the school. "You told us, sir, that Belgium is perpetually neutral by agreement of all the nations of Europe."
"She is so, by every law of international honor, by every pledge, by solemn covenants sealed and sworn to by Germany herself," came the reply. "Civilization, humanity, progress, liberty—all the things which men have fought and died for—depend on the faith of a plighted word. If a man's gauge and a nation's gauge no longer stand—then every principle that has been won by the human race since the days that the cave-man waged war with his teeth crashes into ruin."
"But what shall we be able to do, sir?" asked Horace Monroe, one of the elder boys.
"We can do what the cave-man did when the cave-bear invaded his rude home!" thundered the patriot. "We can fight with every weapon we have, yes, if we have to throw ourselves at the enemy's throat with naked hands. Such of our troops as we could mobilize at a moment's notice are ready, but every man who has served his time in training will be needed. I go to-night!"
"For the front, sir?" asked Deschamps.
"For the cave-bear's throat!"
The room buzzed with an excited whispering.