THE CITY SURRENDERS
Antwerp has surrendered!
It is Friday morning. All hope is over. The Germans are coming in at half-past one.
"Well," Says Mr. Lucien Arthur Jones at last, at the end of a long discussion between him and Mr. Frank Fox and myself, "if you have really decided to stay, I'm going to give you this key! It belongs to the house of some wealthy Belgians who have fled to England. There is plenty of food and stores of all kind in the house. If need be, you might take shelter there!"
And he gave me the key and the address, and I,—luckily for myself,—I remembered it afterwards.
With a queer little choke in my throat, I stood on the hotel door-step, watching those two Englishmen on their bicycles whirling away down the Avenue de Commerce.
In a moment they were swallowed up from my sight in the black pall of cloud and smoke that hung above the city, dropping from the leaden skies like long black fringes, and hovering over the streets like thick funeral veils.
So they were gone!
The die was cast. I was alone now, all alone in the fated city.
At first, the thought was a little sickening.