On the occasion in question, disregarding the U-boat's signal to stop and show his national flag, he turned at a critical moment at high speed against the submarine, which escaped the steamer by a few metres only because of swiftly diving. He confessed that in so doing he had acted in accordance with the instructions of the Admiralty. The sentence was confirmed yesterday afternoon and carried out by shooting. This is one of the many nefarious _franc-tireur_ proceedings of the British merchant marine against our war vessels, and it has found a belated but merited expiation. The civilized nations of the world, in which we do not include Germany and her allies, have agreed that the execution of Captain Fryatt was a murder. Possibly the Germans also know it, but defend it as they did the invasion of Belgium, as "necessary" to German victory. History will forever record it as an example of the black deeds done by desperate men who care only to accomplish their selfish ends, and will explain how these evil deeds of horror and of terror have injured those who committed them more than those who suffered from them. On the very day of the execution of Captain Fryatt, the British passenger liner _Falaba_ was torpedoed and sunk without warning. She sank in eight minutes carrying with her one hundred and four men, women, and children, who were "not members of a combatant force." RUPERT BROOKE[3] Among the losses that the World War has caused--many of them losses that can never be made good--is that of the promising young English poet, Rupert Brooke. He was a fine type in mind and body. His father was a teacher in the great English school at Rugby, and here the boy learned to write, and to play cricket, tennis, and football. He was interested in every form of athletics and was strong and skillful at all. He was a great walker and a fine diver and swimmer. He was said to have been one of the handsomest Englishmen of his day, tall, broad, easy, and graceful in his movements, with steady blue eyes, and a wavy mass of fair hair. He had traveled much in France, Germany, Italy, the United States, Canada, and the South Seas, where he visited Stevenson's home in Samoa. Of all lands, however, he loved England best. When the war broke out, Brooke said, "Well, if Armageddon's on, I suppose I should be there." He enlisted, was commissioned as lieutenant, and was sent almost immediately with the English forces to relieve Antwerp, at that time besieged by the Germans. This experience, lying day after day in trenches under German fire, followed by the terrible retreat by night with the thousands of Belgians who had lost everything except their lives, changed the careless, happy youth into a man. He was but twenty-seven years old when he enlisted. He wrote but little poetry after his enlistment, but it is all of a finer, more spiritual quality than any of his previous work.