It was almost exactly midnight that I found myself listening, half awake, to the familiar sound of distant cannon.  One had come to think of it, almost, as nothing but a sound; and to listen with a detached and not unpleasant interest as a man tucked comfortably in bed follows a roll of thunder to its end or listens to the fall of rain.

It struck me suddenly that there was something new about this sound; I sat up in bed to listen, and at that instant a far-off, sullen “Boom !” was followed by a crash as if lightning had struck a house a little way down the street.  As I hurried to the window there came another far-off detonation, a curious wailing whistle swept across the sky, and over behind the roofs to the left there was another crash.

One after another they came, at intervals of half a minute, or screaming on each other’s heels as if racing to their goal.  And then the crash or, if farther away, muffled explosion as another roof toppled in or cornice dropped off, as a house made of canvas drops to pieces in a play.

The effect of those unearthly wails, suddenly singing in across country in the dead of night from six—­eight—­ten miles away—­Heaven knows where—­was, as the Germans intended it to be, tremendous.  It is not easy to describe nor to be imagined by those who had not lived in that threatened city—­the last Belgian stronghold—­and felt that vast, unseen power rolling nearer and nearer.  And now, all at once, it was here, materialized, demoniacal, a flying death, swooping across the dark into your very room.

It was like one of those dreams in which you cannot stir from your tracks, and meanwhile “Boom...  Tzee-ee-ee-ee !”—­is this one meant for you?

Already there was a patter of feet in the dark, and people with white bundles on their backs went stumbling by toward the river and the bridge.  Motors came honking down from the inner streets, and the quay, which had begun to clear by this time, was again jammed.  I threw on some clothes, hurried to the street.  A rank smell of kerosene hung in the air; presently a petrol shell burst to the southward, lighting up the sky for an instant like the flare from a blast-furnace, and a few moments later there showed over the roofs the flames of the first fire.

Although we could hear the wail of shells flying across their wide parabola both into the town and out from the first ring of forts, few burst in our part of the city that night, and we walked up as far as the cathedral without seeing anything but black and silent streets.  Every one in the hotel was up and dressed by this time.  Some were for leaving at once; one family, piloted by the comfortable Belgian servants—­far cooler than any one else—­went to the cellar, some gathered about the grate in the writing-room to watch the night out; the rest of us went back to bed.