Relying on my experience in Brussels, I had anticipated being able to get away even more easily from Antwerp, because of Henri's motor car. But obviously for the moment I was checked. As dusk fell and the lights were lit, I retired into the kitchen and busied myself cutting bread and butter, and still continuing my highly interesting observations. On the table lay piles of sausage, and presently in came two German officers, an old grey-bearded General, and a dashing young Uhlan Lieutenant. "We want three eggs each," said the Uhlan roughly, addressing himself to me. "Three eggs, soft boiled, and some bread with butter, with much butter!" I nodded but dared not answer. And the red-faced young Lieutenant, thinking I did not understand, ground his heel angrily, and muttered "Gott!" when his eyes fell on the sausage, and his expression changed as if by magic. "Wurst?" he ejaculated to the General. "Here there sausage is!" It was quite funny to see the way these two gallant soldiers bent over the sausage, their eyes beaming with greedy joy, and in ten minutes every German was crying out for sausage, and the town was being ransacked in all directions in search of more. CHAPTER XLIII SATURDAY The saddest thing in Antwerp is the howling of the dogs. Thousands have been left shut in the houses when their owners fled, and all day and night these poor creatures utter piercing, desolate cries that grow louder and more piercing as time goes on. It is Saturday morning, October 10th. Strange things have happened. When I went to my door just now, I found it locked from the outside. I have tried the other door. That is locked, too. What does it mean, I wonder? Here I am in a little room about twelve feet by six, with one window looking on to the back wall of one of the Antwerp theatres. I can hear the sounds of fierce cannonading going on in the distance, but the noise within the hotel close at hand is so loud as to deaden the sounds of battle; for the Germans are running up and down the corridors perpetually, shouting, singing, stamping, and the pianos are going, too. Nobody comes near me. I knock at both the doors, but gently, for I am afraid to draw attention to myself. Nobody answers. The old woman and the two little children have left the room on my right, the old man has left the room on my left. I am all alone in this little den. I dress as well as I can, but the room is just a tiny sitting-room; there are no facilities for making one's toilette. I have to do without washing my face. Instead, I rub it with Crême Floreine, and the amount of black that comes off is appalling. Then I lie down at full length on my mattress and wonder what is going to happen next. Hour after hour goes by. In a corner of the room I discover an English weekly history of the War, and lying there on my mattress I read many strange stories that seem somehow to mock a little at these real happenings. Then voices just outside in the corridor reach me.