ime, the screams and curses of those upon whose
faces and shoulders the soldiers' whips fell so pitilessly.

In the great hall of the hotel itself pandemonium reigned. Afraid of the
streets and of their homes, the wives and daughters of many officials
fled hither as to a haven of refuge which would never be suspected. They
crowded the passages, the staircases, the reception-rooms. They besieged
the officers for news of that which befell without. Their terrified
faces remained a striking tribute to the ferocity of their enemies and
the reality of the peril.

Let it be said in justice that this majestic spectacle of tragedy found
Alban Kennedy well prepared to understand its meaning. Had he told the
truth he would have said that the mob orators of Union Street had
prepared him for such a state of things as he now beheld. The Cossacks,
were they not the Cossacks whom old Paul had called "the enemies of the
human race?" The gilt-belarded generals, had he not seen them cast upon
the screen in England and there heard their names with curses? Just as
they had told him would be the case, so now he had stumbled upon
autocracy face to face with its ancient enemy, the people. He saw the
brutal Cossacks with their puny horses and their terrible whips parading
beneath his balcony and treating all the poor folk with that insolence
for which they are famous. He beheld the huddled crowds lifting white
faces to the sky and cowering before the relentless lash. Not a whit had
the patriot exiles in London exaggerated these things or misrepresented
them. Men, and women too, were struck down, their faces ripped by the
thongs, their shoulders lacerated before his very eyes. And all this, as
he vaguely understood, that freedom might be denied to this nation and
justice withheld from her citizens. Truly had he travelled far since he
left England a few short days ago.

Sergius Zamoyski had engaged a handsome suite of rooms upon the first
floor of the magnificent modern hotel which looks down upon the Aleja
Avenue, and to these they went at once upon their arrival. It was
something at least to escape from the excited throngs below and to stand
apart, alike from the rabble and the soldiers. Nor was the advantage of
their situation to be despised; for they had but to step out upon the
veranda before their sitting-rooms to command the whole prospect of the
avenue, and there, at their will, to be observers of the conflict. To
Sergius Zamoyski, fami