This note they pinned upon the inside of the kitchen door.
"Now we are ready to start," said Jan; and, calling Fidel, the two
children set forth. They took a short cut from the house across the
pasture to the potato-field. Here they dug a few potatoes, which they
put in their bundle, and then, avoiding the road, slipped down to the
river, and, following the stream, made their way toward Malines.
It was fortunate for them that, screened by the bushes and trees which
fringed the bank of the river, they saw but little of the ruin and
devastation left in the wake of the German hosts. There were farmers
who had tried to defend their families and homes from the invaders.
Burning houses and barns marked the places where they had lived and
died. But the children, thinking only of their lost mother, and of
keeping themselves as much out of sight as possible in their search for
her, were spared most of these horrors. Their progress was slow, for
the bundle was heavy, and the river path less direct than the road, and
it was nightfall before the two little waifs, with Fidel at their
heels, reached the well-remembered Brussels gate.
Their hearts almost stopped beating when they found it guarded by a
German soldier. "Who goes there?" demanded the guard gruffly, as he
caught sight of the little figures.
"If you please, sir, it's Jan and Marie," said Jan, shaking in his
boots.
"And Fidel, too," said Marie.
The soldier bent down and looked closely at the two tear-stained little
faces. It may be that some remembrance of other little faces stirred
within him, for he only said stiffly, "Pass, Jan and Marie, and you,
too, Fidel." And the two children and the dog hurried through the gate
and up the first street they came to, their bundle bumping along behind
them as they ran.
The city seemed strangely silent and deserted, except for the gray-clad
soldiers, and armed guards blocked the way at intervals. Taught by
fear, Jan and Marie soon learned to slip quietly along under cover of
the gathering darkness, and to dodge into a doorway or round a corner,
when they came too near one of the stiff, helmeted figures.
At last, after an hour of aimless wandering, they found themselves in a
large, open square, looking up at the tall cathedral spires. A German
soldier came suddenly out of the shadows, and the frightened children,
scarcely knowing what they did, ran up the cathedral steps and flung
themselves against the door. When the soldier had passed by, they
reached cautiously up, and by dint of pulling with their united
strength succeeded at last in getting the door open. They thrust their
bundle inside, pushed Fidel in after it, and then slipped through
themselves. The great door closed behind them on silent hinges and they
were alone in the vast stillness of the cathedral. Timidly they crept
toward the lights of the altar, and, utterly exhausted, slept that
night on the floor near the statue of the Madonna, with their heads
pillowed on Fidel's shaggy side.