in this little Polish town
travelled to the _Samooborona_ (Self-Defence) Headquarters in Southern
Russia through the indiscretion of a village pope who had had a drop
of blood too much. It appeared that Milovka, though remote from the
great centres of disturbance, had begun to seethe with political
activity, and even to publish a newspaper, so that it was necessary to
show by a first-class massacre that true Russian men were still loyal
to God and the Czar. Milovka lay off the _pogrom_ route, and had not
of itself caught the contagion; careful injection of the virus was
necessary. Moreover, the town was two-thirds Jewish, and consequently
harder to fever with the lust of Jewish blood. But in revenge the
_pogrom_ would be easier; the Jewish quarter formed a practically
separate town; no asking of _dvorniks_ (janitors) to point out the
Jewish apartments, no arming one's self with photographs of the
victims; one had but to run amuck among these low wooden houses, the
humblest of which doubtless oozed with inexhaustible subterranean
wealth.

David Ben Amram was hurriedly despatched to Milovka to organize a
local self-defence corps. He carried as many pistols as could be
stowed away in a violin-case, which, with a music-roll holding
cartridges, was an obtrusive feature of his luggage. The winter was
just beginning, but mildly. The sun shone over the broad plains, and
as David's train carried him towards Milovka, his heart swelled with
thoughts of the Maccabean deeds to be wrought there by a regenerated
Young Israel. But the journey was long. Towards the end he got into
conversation with an old Russian peasant who, so far from sharing in
the general political effervescence, made a long lament over the good
old days of serfdom. 'Then, one had not to think--one ate and drank.
Now, it is all toil and trouble.'

'But you were whipped at your lord's pleasure,' David reminded him.

'He was a nobleman,' retorted the peasant with dignity.

David fell silent. The Jew, too, had grown to kiss the rod. But it was
not even a nobleman's rod; any moujik, any hooligan, could wield it.
But, thank Heaven, this breed of Jew was passing away--killed by the
_pogroms_. It was their one virtue.

At the station he hired a ramshackle droshky, and told his Jewish
driver to take him to the best inn. Seated astride the old-fashioned
bench of the vehicle, and grasping his violin-case like a loving
musician, as they jolted over the rough roads, he b