ative
silence for a little, till the officer had got back into the ranks. I
was near the edge of the crowd, towards the soldiers,' says this
eye-witness, 'and I saw three little machines being wheeled out in front
of the ranks, which I knew for mechanical guns. I cried out, "Throw
yourselves down! they are going to fire!" But no one scarcely could
throw himself down, so tight as the crowd were packed. I heard a sharp
order given, and wondered where I should be the next minute; and then--It
was as if--the earth had opened, and hell had come up bodily amidst us.
It is no use trying to describe the scene that followed. Deep lanes were
mowed amidst the thick crowd; the dead and dying covered the ground, and
the shrieks and wails and cries of horror filled all the air, till it
seemed as if there were nothing else in the world but murder and death.
Those of our armed men who were still unhurt cheered wildly and opened a
scattering fire on the soldiers. One or two soldiers fell; and I saw the
officers going up and down the ranks urging the men to fire again; but
they received the orders in sullen silence, and let the butts of their
guns fall. Only one sergeant ran to a machine-gun and began to set it
going; but a tall young man, an officer too, ran out of the ranks and
dragged him back by the collar; and the soldiers stood there motionless
while the horror-stricken crowd, nearly wholly unarmed (for most of the
armed men had fallen in that first discharge), drifted out of the Square.
I was told afterwards that the soldiers on the west side had fired also,
and done their part of the slaughter. How I got out of the Square I
scarcely know: I went, not feeling the ground under me, what with rage
and terror and despair.'

"So says our eye-witness. The number of the slain on the side of the
people in that shooting during a minute was prodigious; but it was not
easy to come at the truth about it; it was probably between one and two
thousand. Of the soldiers, six were killed outright, and a dozen
wounded."

I listened, trembling with excitement. The old man's eyes glittered and
his face flushed as he spoke, and told the tale of what I had often
thought might happen. Yet I wondered that he should have got so elated
about a mere massacre, and I said:

"How fearful! And I suppose that this massacre put an end to the whole
revolution for that time?"

"No, no," cried old Hammond; "it began it!"

He filled his glass and mi