THE SWIFT RETRIBUTION
As I stood in the rain, down there in the ruined blackened piazza of
Aerschot, someone drew my attention to the hole in the back-window of
the Burgomaster's house.
In cold blood, the Germans had shot the Burgomaster.
And they had shot two of his children.
And as they could not find the Burgomaster's wife, who had fled into the
country, they had offered 4,000 francs reward for her.
A hoarse voice whispered that in that room with the broken window, the
German Colonel who had ordered the murder of the good, kind, beloved
Burgomaster, had met his own fate.
Yes! In the room of the dead Burgomaster's maidservant, the German
colonel had fallen dead from a shot fired from without.
By whose hand was it fired, that shot that laid the monster at his
victim's feet?
"By the hand of an inferieur!" someone whispers.
And I put together the story, and understand that the girl's village
sweetheart avenged her.
They are both dead now--the girl and her village swain--shot down
instantly by the howling Germans.
But their memory will never die; for they stand--that martyred boy and
girl,--for Belgium's fight for its women's honour and the manliness of
its men.