Never shall I forget how, during that long night in prison, he crawled over and around the recumbent forms to where I lay upon the floor courting sleep in vain.  I was frightened by this maneuver, but he smiled and motioned me to silence.  Reaching up beneath my blanket, he unlaced one shoe and then the other.  At first I really thought that he was going to steal them, but the reaction from the day had set in and I was too tired and paralyzed to make any protest.  Laying the shoes one side, he remarked, “That will ease your feet.”  Then stripping off his coat and rolling it into a bundle, he placed it as a pillow beneath my head.

A great, big hulking American, treated tenderly by this little Belgian, how could I keep the tears from my eyes?  And as they came welling up—­tears of appreciation for the generous fineness of his spirit—­he took them to be tears of grief, brought on by thoughts of home and friends and all those haunting memories.  But he was equal to the occasion.

In a little vacant space he made a circle of cigarettes and small Belgian coins.  In the center he placed a small box, and on it laid a ruler.  “This is the roulette wheel at Monte Carlo, and you are the rich American,” he whispered, and with a snap of the finger he spun the ruler round.  Whenever it stopped, he presented me my prize with sundry winkings and chucklings, interrupted by furtive glances towards the door.

Rouge-et-noir upon a prison floor!  To him existence was such a game—­red life or black death, as the fates ordained.  His spirit was contagious, and I found myself smiling through my tears.  When he saw his task accomplished, gathering in his coins, he crawled away.

His was a restless spirit.  Only once did I see him steadfastly quiet.  That was the next morning, when he sat with his eyes fixed upon an opening in the shutter.  He insisted upon my taking his seat, and adjusting my angle of vision properly.  There, framed in a window across the forbidden courtyard, was a pretty girl watering flowers.  She was indeed a distracting creature, and de Burgher danced around me with unfeigned glee.  His previous experience with Americans had evidently led him to believe that we were all connoisseurs in pretty girls.  I tried valiantly to uphold our national reputation, but my thoughts at the time were much more heavenly than even that fair apparition framed in the window, and I fear I disappointed de Burgher by my lack of enthusiasm.

My other comrade, Constance Staes, must not be forgotten.  For some infraction of the new military regulations he had been hustled off to prison, but he, too, was born for liberty, a free-ranging spirit that fetters could never bind.  He made me see the Belgian soul that would never be subservient to German rule.  The Germans can be overlords in Belgium only when such spirits have either emigrated or have been totally exterminated.