THE LOFODEN ISLANDS 237 



I heard afterwards at the offices of the Norwegian 

 Company which owned the Bessheim^ and it was 

 certainly fortunate that we had escaped from the 

 net so carefully woven by the German spies. 



One of the most curious things about cleverness 

 is its stupidity, and the more intelligent any people 

 become the more prone are they to fall into folly. 

 Germany proclaimed herself to the world as the 

 most highly civilised of all races, and yet she com- 

 mitted the most appalling errors any nation could 

 commit. Her scientists invented poison gas, for- 

 getting that this sword was double-edged, and in 

 their conceit they imagined there were no chemists 

 in England. To-day thousands of German homes 

 are mourning their lost sons in consequence. But 

 of all the foolish things they did, perhaps the most 

 utterly stupid was the killing of Edith Cavell and 

 Captain Fryatt, for it added immense strength in 

 recruits to the armies of England and America. 

 The whole world was shocked at these crimes, and 

 to-day two imperishable figures sit on high in 

 judgment over their murderers. No incidents of 

 the war stirred the English people as did the 

 killing of these two humble people. Their deaths 

 were the acts of angry bullies who imagined them- 

 selves safe from reprisal. Such people must win, or 

 suffer terrible punishment themselves. And so we 

 have the reckoning, and Germany has only proved 

 how stupid she was, after all. 



