When the Twins awoke, early the next morning, they found that Father
and Mother De Smet had been stirring much earlier still, and that the
"Old Woman" was already slipping quietly along among the docks of
Antwerp. To their immense surprise they were being towed, not by
Netteke, but by a very small and puffy steam tug. They were further
astonished to find that Netteke herself was on board the "Old Woman."
"How in the world did you get the mule on to the boat!" gasped Jan,
when he saw her.
"Led her right up the gangplank just like folks," answered Father De
Smet. "I couldn't leave her behind and I wanted to get to the Antwerp
docks as soon as possible. This was the quickest way. You see," he went
on, "I don't know where I shall be going next, but I know it won't be
up the Dyle, so I am going to keep Netteke right where I can use her
any minute."
There was no time for further questions, for Father De Smet had to
devote his attention to the tiller. Soon they were safely in dock and
Father De Smet was unloading his potatoes and selling them to the
market-men, who swarmed about the boats to buy the produce which had
been brought in from the country.
"There!" he said with a sigh of relief as he delivered the last of his
cargo to a purchaser late in the afternoon; "that load is safe from the
Germans, anyway."
"How did you find things up the Dyle?" asked the merchant who had
bought the potatoes.
Father De Smet shook his head.
"Couldn't well be worse," he said. "I'm not going to risk another trip.
The Germans are taking everything they can lay their hands on, and are
destroying what they can't seize. I nearly lost this load, and my life
into the bargain. If it hadn't been that, without knowing it, we
stopped so near the Belgian line of trenches that they could fire on
the German foragers who tried to take our cargo, I shouldn't have been
here to tell this tale."
"God only knows what will become of Belgium if this state of things
continues," groaned the merchant. "Food must come from somewhere or the
people will starve."
"True enough," answered Father De Smet. "I believe I'll try a trip
north through the back channels of the Scheldt and see what I can pick
up."
"Don't give up, anyway," urged the merchant. "If you fellows go back on
us, I don't know what we shall do. We depend on you to bring supplies
from somewhere, and if you can't get them in Belgium, you'll have to go
up into Holland."
Mother De Smet leaned over the boatrail and spoke to the two men who
were standing on the dock.
"You'd better believe we'll not give up," she said. "We don't know the
meaning of the word."
"Well," said the merchant sadly, "maybe you don't, but there are others
who do. It takes a stout heart to have faith that God hasn't forgotten
Belgium these days."
"It's easy enough to have faith when things are going right," said
Mother De Smet, "but to have faith when things are going wrong isn't so
easy." Then she remembered Granny. "But a sick heart won't get you
anywhere, and maybe a stout one will," she finished.
"That's a good word," said the merchant.
"It was said by as good a woman as treads shoe-leather," answered
Mother De Smet.
"You are safe while you stay in Antwerp, anyway," said the merchant as
he turned to say good-bye. "Our forts are the strongest in the world
and the Germans will never be able to take them. There's comfort in
that for us." Then he spoke to his horses and turned away with his load.
"Let us stay right here to-night," said Mother De Smet to her husband
as he came on board the boat. "We are all in need of rest after
yesterday, and in Antwerp we can get a good night's sleep. Besides, it
is so late in the day that we couldn't get out of town before dark if
we tried."
Following this plan, the whole family went to bed at dusk, but they
were not destined to enjoy the quiet sleep they longed for. The night
was warm, and the cabin small, so Father De Smet and Joseph, as well as
the Twins, spread bedding on the deck and went to sleep looking up at
the stars.
They had slept for some hours when they were suddenly aroused by the
sound of a terrific explosion. Instantly they sprang to their feet,
wide awake, and Mother De Smet came rushing from the cabin with the
babies screaming in her arms.
"What is it now? What is it?" she cried.
"Look! Look!" cried Jan.
He pointed to the sky. There, blazing with light, like a great
misshapen moon, was a giant airship moving swiftly over the city. As it
sailed along, streams of fire fell from it, and immediately there
followed the terrible thunder of bursting bombs. When it passed out of
sight, it seemed as if the voice of the city itself must rise in
anguish at the terrible destruction left in its wake.
Just what that destruction was, Father De Smet did not wish to see.
"This is a good place to get away from," he said to the frightened
group cowering on the deck of the "Old Woman" after the bright terror
had disappeared. When morning came he lost no time in making the best
speed he could away from the doomed city of Antwerp which they had
thought so safe.
When they had left the city behind them and the boat was slowly making
its way through the quiet back channels of the Scheldt the world once
more seemed really peaceful to the wandering children. Their way lay
over still waters and beside green pastures, and as they had no
communication with the stricken regions of Belgium, they had no news of
the progress of the war, until, some days later, the boat docked at
Rotterdam, and it became necessary to decide what should be done next.
There they learned that they had barely escaped the siege of Antwerp,
which had begun with the Zeppelin raid.
Father De Smet was now obliged to confront the problem of what to do
with his own family, for, since Antwerp was now in the hands of the
enemy, he could no longer earn his living in the old way. Under these
changed conditions he could not take care of Jan and Marie, so one sad
day they said good-bye to good Mother De Smet, to Joseph and the
babies, and went with Father De Smet into the city of Rotterdam.
They found that these streets were also full of Belgian refugees, and
here, too, they watched for their mother. In order to keep up her
courage, Marie had often to feel of the locket and to say to herself:
"She will find us. She will find us." And Jan, Jan had many times to
say to himself, "I am now a man and must be brave," or he would have
cried in despair.
But help was nearer than they supposed. Already England had begun to
organize for the relief of the Belgian refugees, and it was in the
office of the British Consul at Rotterdam that Father De Smet finally
took leave of Jan and Marie. The Consul took them that night to his own
home, and, after a careful record had been made of their names and
their parents' names and all the facts about them, they were next day
placed upon a ship, in company with many other homeless Belgians, and
sent across the North Sea to England.