"The military prosecutor said the argument might be good for English soldiers, but that it did not apply to Belgian young men, who would have been perfectly free to remain in the country without danger to their lives. The German military court found her guilty and sentenced her to death by shooting." The execution took place at 2 o'clock in the morning (October 12, 1915) immediately after the American and Spanish diplomats left the house of the German Governor, who refused their appeals. The execution ground was a garden or yard in Brussels surrounded by a wall. A German firing party of six men and an officer was drawn up in the garden and awaited its victim. She was led in by soldiers from a house near-by, blindfolded with a black scarf. Up to this minute the woman, though deadly white, had stepped out bravely to meet her fate, but before the rifle party her strength at last gave out and she tottered and fell to the ground thirty yards or more from the spot where she was to have been shot. The officer in charge of the execution walked to her. She lay prone on the ground, motionless. The officer then drew a large service revolver from his belt, took steady aim from his knee and shot the woman through the head as she lay on the floor (this version is denied by the German authorities). The firing party looked on. The officer quietly returned his revolver to its case and ordered the soldiers to carry the body to the house, where charge was taken of it by a Belgian woman, acting under the instructions of the Spanish Minister, who had undertaken the responsibility for the body pending arrangements for the burial. * * * * * M. De Leval, a Belgian counsellor, makes this statement of Edith Cavell's last message: "This morning Mr. Gahan, an English clergyman, told me that he had seen Miss Cavell in her cell yesterday night at 10 o'clock and that he had given her the Holy Communion and had found her admirably strong and calm. I asked Mr. Gahan whether she had made any remarks about anything concerning the legal side of her case, and whether the confession she made before trial and in court was in his opinion perfectly free and sincere. Mr. Gahan said she told him she was perfectly well and knew what she had done; that, according to the law, of course she was guilty, and admitted her guilt, but that she was happy to die for her country."[14] II--STORY OF HUGH GIBSON, AMERICAN DIPLOMAT