“You will hand over to us a hundred of your notables as hostages for your people’s good behaviour,” said the German General. “I will be your hostage,” instantly replied M. Max, “and I will provide you with none other.” Small wonder that this brave, good-humoured man won the love as well as the respect of the people of whom he was the shepherd. On one occasion the German General, trying to threaten and bully M. Max, laid his revolver on the table with what he apparently thought was a grand gesture. M. Max, with a smile, took up his pen and laid it beside the revolver. And never was there a better example shown of the fact that the pen can be mightier than the sword. At last, as punishment for his sturdy courage and his determination to protect his people’s legal rights, M. Max was suspended from his office, and put in what the enemy quaintly called “honourable custody” in a German fortress. Fierce were the grief and anger of the unfortunate inhabitants of Brussels, and the Germans soon found that it was far more difficult to govern the city in the absence, than with the help, of M. Max. The Germans had not been at Brussels very long when it became known that British Marines had been landed at Ostend. They only stayed there a short time, but their temporary presence was a great comfort to the poor Belgians. Ostend was then simply a pretty watering-place, but that was not always so. The town whose name, as you will see later, was to become a familiar one in this great war, was once besieged by the Spaniards for three and a half years, and it was said that the noise of the bombardment was heard in London! It was at Ostend that the Duke of Wellington, then plain Arthur Wellesley, first set foot on the Continent. Early in the War Ostend became a place of desolation and distress, for the unfortunate Belgians, when fleeing from their burnt towns and villages, naturally made for the sea. There was no room in the town to lodge them all, and many of them lived for quite a long time in bathing-machines on the beach. It was mostly from Ostend that the Belgian refugees embarked to find kind new friends and homes in England. Before the Germans marched on Brussels King Albert and his brave Queen had left for Antwerp, the beautiful old city and port which was, till this war, regarded as one of the best fortified strongholds in Europe.