"Quel chance, Louisa, quel chance!" cries Lenore.
"To-morrow morning we shall all take you there!" declares Henri.
Their surprise, their delight, allay my last lingering doubts.
"But mind," I urge them feverishly. "You must never let the Danish Doctor know that address."
That night I sleep in a feather-bed in a room at the top of dear Ada's house.
Or try to sleep! Alas, it is only trying. My windows look on a long narrow street, a dead street, full of empty houses, and from these houses come stealing with louder and louder insistence the sounds of those imprisoned dogs howling within the barred doors of the empty houses. Their cries are terrible, they are starving now and perishing of thirst. They yelp and whine, and wail, they bark and shriek and plead, they sob, they moan. They send forth blood-curdling cries, in dozens, in hundreds, from every street, from every quarter, these massed wails go up into the night, lending a new horror to the dark. And through it all the Germans sleep, they make no attempt either to destroy the poor tortured brutes, or to give them food and water, they are to be left there to die. Hour after hour goes by, I bury my head under a pillow, but I cannot shut out those awful sounds, they penetrate through everything, sometimes they are death-agonies; the dogs are giving up, they can suffer no longer. They understand at last that mankind, their friend, who has had all their faith and love, has deserted them, and then with fresh bursts of howling they seem afresh to make him listen, to make him realize this dark and terrible thing that has come to them, this racking thirst and hunger that he has been so careful to provide against before, even as though they were his children, his own little ones, not his dogs. And, they howl, and cry, the dead city listens, and gives no sign, and they shiver, and shriek, and wail, but in vain, in vain. It is the most awful night of my life!
CHAPTER XLV
A SAFE SHELTER
Next morning at ten o'clock, Lenore and I and the ever-faithful Henri (carrying my parrot, if you please!) and Ada strolled with affected nonchalance through the Antwerp streets where a pale gold sun was shining on the ruins.