might have carried out his plan, but he wanted our potatoes and
our supper too; and so he got neither!" he chuckled. "And neither
did the Kaiser get a toast from me! Instead, he got a salute from
the Belgians." He crossed himself reverently. "Thank God for our
soldiers," he said, and Mother De Smet, weeping softly, murmured
a devout "Amen."

Little did Jan and Marie dream as they listened, that this
blessing rested upon their own father, and that he had been one
of the Belgian soldiers, who, firing from the trenches, had
delivered them from the hands of their enemies. Their father,
hidden away, in the earth like a fox, as little dreamed that he
had helped to save his own children from a terrible fate.


XII

THE ZEPPELIN RAID

THE ZEPPELIN RAID

When the Twins awoke, early the next morning, they found that
Father and Mother De Smet had been stirring much earlier still,
and that the "Old Woman" was already slipping quietly along among
the docks of Antwerp. To their immense surprise they were being
towed, not by Netteke, but by a very small and puffy steam tug.
They were further astonished to find that Netteke herself was on
board the "Old Woman."

"How in the world did you get the mule on to the boat! " gasped