These nights are stiflingly hot. And the mosquitoes still linger. Indeed they are so bad sometimes that I put eucalyptus oil on my pillow to keep them away. How strange that all this terrific firing should not have frightened them off! I come to the conclusion that mosquitoes are deaf. The curious thing is, no one can tell, by looking at Antwerp, that she is going through the greatest page in all her varied history. Her shops are open. People sit at crowded cafés sipping their coffee or beer. A magnificent calm prevails. There is no sense of active danger. The lights go out at seven instead of eight. By ten o'clock the city is asleep, save for the coming and going of clattering troops over the rough-flagged streets and avenues. Grapes and pears and peaches are displayed in luxuriant profusion, at extraordinarily low prices. Fish and meat are dearer, but chickens are still very cheap. The "_Anversois_" still take as much trouble over their cooking, which is uncommonly good, even for Belgium. And then on Saturday, with the sharpness and suddenness of lightning, the terrible rumour goes round that Antwerp is going to _surrender_,--yes, surrender--rather than run the risk of being destroyed like Louvain, and Termonde, and Aerschot. The Legation has received orders that the Government is about to be moved to Ostend. Crowds of people begin to hurry out of Antwerp in motor cars, until the city looks somewhat like London on a Sunday afternoon, half-empty, and full of bare spaces, instead of crowded and animated as Antwerp has been ever since the Government moved here from Brussels. And then, on Sunday, comes a change. The news spreads like wild-fire that the Legations have had their orders countermanded early in the morning. They are to wait further instructions. Something has happened. _THE ENGLISH ARE COMING!_ CHAPTER XXVIII MONDAY A golden, laughing day is this 5th of October. As I fly along in my car I soon sense a new current, vivid and electric, flowing along with the stream of Belgian life.