[Footnote 46: _Bay-yule´_, a small village seven miles north-west of Armentières.] [Footnote 47: _Varn-ton´_ (_n_ nasal).] CHAPTER IX. STIRRING STORIES OF ANXIOUS DAYS. In this chapter I am going to give you a selection of stories which illustrate the fighting from the fall of Antwerp down to the 20th of October 1914. Our first story tells how a British lady in her own yacht carried off many refugees from Ostend while the enemy was actually in the town. [Illustration: Miss Jessica Borthwick steering the Grace Darling out of Ostend Harbour. (_Photo, Sport and General._)] "At nine," says a newspaper correspondent, "we interviewed the official in charge at the burgomaster's office. 'Fly,' he said tersely. 'The Germans will be here, perhaps, in ten minutes.'... I had already arranged a retreat. At ten o'clock we went on board the _Grace Darling_, a schooner yacht which for the past weeks has been working the British Field Hospital in Belgium. She was chartered and fitted out for the purpose by Miss Jessica Borthwick at her own expense. As will appear, the _Grace Darling_ was by three hours the last vessel out of Ostend.... "The Germans were now half a mile away, and we were lying well down in the almost empty harbour. It became necessary to get our auxiliary engine going, and make out at least as far as the harbour mouth. At a quarter-past ten the first Germans appeared--a patrol of Uhlans--trotting across the bridge that leads into the town from the Blankenberghe road. "At this critical moment the fact emerged that the man who had shipped as a first-class engineer to work our engine for us was not an engineer at all, but an organ-grinder! The organ-grinder's efforts to start the engine were deplorable, and we were so placed we could not get a breath of wind for the sails. The decks of the little yacht were covered with refugees--Belgian fathers, women, and children. They watched with a stricken calm a second and a third Uhlan patrol cross the bridge. Two escaped soldiers in plain clothes who had come on board dropped their uniforms into the water . . .