The passing music had a jubilating effect upon our guards, who paraded gayly up and down the room.  One simple, good-hearted fellow harangued us in a bantering way, pointing out our present sorry plight as evidence of the sad mistake we had made in not being born in Germany.  He felt so happy that he took a little collection from us, and in due time returned with some bread and chocolate and soda water.  But even the soda water, as if adjusting itself to the spiritlessness of the prisoners, refused to effervesce.  The music had by contrast seemed only to increase the general depression.

Only one free spirit soared above his surroundings.  He was a young Belgian—­Ernest de Burgher by name—­a kindly light amidst the encircling gloom.  He took everything in life with a smile.  I am sure that if death as a spy had been ordered for him at the door, he would have met that with the same happy, imperturbable expression.  He had quite as much reason as I, if not more, for joining our gloom-party.  He, too, was waiting sentence.  For six days his wild, untamed spirit had been cabined in these walls; but he had been born a humorist, and even in bonds he sought to play the clown.  He went through contortions, pitched coins against himself, and staggered around the room with a soda-water bottle at his lips, imitating a drunkard.  But ours was a tough house even for his irrepressible spirit to play to.  Despite all his efforts, we sat around like a convention of corpses, and only once did his comic spirit succeed.

One prisoner sunk down in a comatose condition in his chair, as though his last drop of strength and life had oozed away.  Now de Burgher was one of those who can resist anything but temptation.  He stole over and tied the man’s legs to his chair.  Then he got a German soldier to tap the hapless victim on the shoulder.  Roused from his stupor to see the soldier standing over him like a messenger of doom, the poor fellow turned ashen pale.  He sprang to his feet, but the chair bound to his legs tripped him up and he fell sprawling on the floor.  He apparently regarded the chair as some sort of German infernal machine clutching him, and he lay there wrestling with his inanimate antagonist as though it were a demon.  As soon as the victim understood the joke he joined in the burst of merriment that ran round the room; but it was of short duration.  The gloom got us again, despite all that de Burgher could do, and finally he succumbed to the prevailing atmosphere and gave us up as a bad job.

He was a diminutive fellow, battered and rather the worse for wear.  Ever shall I think of him not only as the happy-souled, but as the great-souled.  My introduction into the room was at the point of a steel bayonet.  With him, that served me far better than any gilt-edged introduction of high estate.  He didn’t know what crime was charged against, me, but he felt that it must have been a sacrifice for Belgium’s sake.  The fact that I was persona non grata to the Germans was a lien upon his sympathy, and gave me high rank with him at once.  He instinctively divined my feelings of fear and loneliness, and straightway set out to make me his ward, his comrade, and his master.