martial law--screwed down the lid so tight that even the most rabid
prohibitionists and social reformers murmured. As a result of the
precautionary measures which were taken, Antwerp, with its four
hundred thousand inhabitants, became about as cheerful a place of
residence as a country cemetery on a rainy evening. At eight o'clock
every street light was turned off, every shop and restaurant and cafe
closed, every window darkened. If a light was seen in a window after
eight o'clock the person who occupied that room was in grave
danger of being arrested for signalling to the enemy. My room,
which was on the third floor of the hotel, was so situated that its
windows could not be seen from the street, and hence I was not as
particular about lowering the shades as I should have been. The
second night after the Zeppelin raid the manager came bursting into
my room. "Quick, Mr. Powell," he called, excitedly, "pull down your
shade. The observers in the cathedral tower have just sent word
that your windows are lighted and the police are downstairs to find
out what it means."

The darkness of London and Paris was a joke beside the darkness
of Antwerp. It was so dark in the narrow, winding streets, bordered
by ancient houses, that when, as was my custom, I went to the
telegraph office with my dispatches after dinner, I had to feel my
way with a cane, like a blind man. To make conditions more
intolerable, if such a thing were possible, cordons of sentries were
thrown around those buildings under whose roofs the members of
the Government slept, so that if one returned after nightfall he was
greeted by a harsh command to halt, and a sentry held a rifle-muzzle
against his breast while another sentry, by means of a dark lantern,
scrutinized his papers. Save for the sentries, the streets were
deserted, for, as the places of amusement and the eating-places and