[Illustration] For some time before midnight, the roar of the cannonade had ceased. The enemy’s guns had for a spell become silent. To the deep bay of the cannon on the defences there came no answering defiance. At last even the guns on the defences had suspended speech. Mr. B. J. Hudson, of the _Central News_, one of the last English correspondents to leave, says:-- There was, uncannily enough, a grim calm before the midnight hour and the darkened city was like a town of the dead. The footsteps of a belated wayfarer echoed loudly. Then suddenly came the first shell, which brought numbers of women into the streets, their anxious object being to discover whether the bombardment had really begun. Very closely did the roar of the guns and the explosion and crash of the striking shells follow each other. All over the southern section of the city shells struck mansion, villa, and cottage indiscriminately. Then the fortress guns, the field batteries, and the armoured trains opened out in one loud chorus, and the din became terrific, while the reflection in the heavens was seemingly one huge, tossing flame. From the roof of my hotel the spectacle was an amazing one. The nerve-racking screech of the shells--the roof-tops of the city alternately dimmed, then illuminated by some sudden red light which left the darkness blacker than before--and then the tearing out of roof or wall by the explosion, made a picture which fell in no way short of Inferno. The assurance thus given to the population that the Germans were fulfilling their threat to bombard a helpless people, sent the citizens to their cellars, as they had been advised to go by the local papers of the day before. About nine o’clock in the morning the German fire once more became heavier, but the screaming of the projectiles and the thunder of falling masonry left the fugitive population quite unmoved. I noticed in one case a family of father, mother, and three small children who absolutely ignored the explosion of a shell some sixty yards in their rear, moving stolidly on. About ten o’clock one of the petrol storage tanks in the city was hit and fired, and one by one the others shared its fate. All along the River Scheldt quay barges and small steamers were taking on human freight as rapidly as they could, charging the wretched people 20 francs a head for the brief trip into Dutch territory. As soon as the flowing spirit from the petrol tanks began to come down the stream something like a panic at last broke out. Those on board the steamers yelled to the officers, pointing to the danger and crying, “Enough! Enough!” Those on the quay, unwilling to be left behind, made wild rushes to obtain a place on the boats.