Had he beheld these things with his own eyes?
No; he had been told of them.
Here I might add that this was our commonest experience in questioning the refugees.

Every one of them had a tale to tell of German atrocities on noncombatants; but not once did we find an avowed eye-witness to such things.

Always our informant had heard of the torturing or the maiming or the murdering, but never had he personally seen it.

It had always happened in another town--never in his own town.
We hoped to hire fresh vehicles of some sort in Nivelles.

Indeed, a half-drunken burgher who spoke fair English, and who, because he had once lived in America, insisted on taking personal charge of our affairs, was constantly bustling in to say he had arranged for carriages and horses; but when the starting hour came--at five o'clock on Monday morning--there was no sign either of our fuddled guardian or of the rigs he had promised.