"'Very well,' said the officer, somewhat more gently, 'but I think it will be best for you to return to your house. If necessary I will call you.'
"A short time after this conversation, I saw the priest, with the few who remained of his household, standing in the Square. I saw them again at about one in the morning; they were still standing in the Square beneath the lamp which shone upon their anxious faces. A dozen or so German soldiers stood about. Two sentries paced up and down, one at each crossing. No one returned to their houses. The curtain had risen upon the drama of Senlis....
"At the end of this day, Thursday, M. Odent (the mayor of Senlis), left the Hôtel de Grand-Cerf accompanied by an officer, and entering a covered automobile was driven rapidly away, followed by five cavalrymen.
"They stopped at a place called 'le Poteari,' situated between Senlis and Chamont; there they found six captives whom the Germans had taken at hazard on the route.
"One of these, named Delacroix, had been arrested in company with two workmen named Quentin and Reck, the latter a mason by trade, at the corner of the Rue de Bordeaux and la République, at the moment when the firing was the hottest in that quarter. Reck had been hit in the jaw and in the arm. The German soldiers entering the town found him bleeding in the road and with the singular, the unexplainable attitude of the German, at one moment cruel to the last degree, at the next of lamblike gentleness, these soldiers conducted the wounded man Reck to the 'prefecture,' where his wounds were tenderly dressed by a German Major!
"Quentin and Delacroix were taken at Chamont with revolvers in their hands, together with a stranger who was visiting the house of his sister, and two others, Benoit Decrens, a domestic servant, and Boullet, a laborer.
"Up to eleven o'clock in the evening these unhappy captives were marched up and down the various streets and alleys of the village by their captors, until at length near the Bon Secours woods in a secluded spot, an officer ordered the mayor and the six captives to lie down on the grass. When this was done, he ordered the mayor, M. Odent, to rise and advance three paces.
"The soldiers presented arms.
"'You are the Mayor Odent?' called out the officer brusquely.
"'Yes.'