ed in casually, ordered a glass of tea, and drifted
upstairs. The landlord, uneasily sniffing peril and profit, and
dismally apprehending pistol lessons, left the inn to his wife, and
stole up likewise to the fateful bedroom. Here, after protesting
fearfully that they would ruin him by this conspirative meeting, he
added that he was not out of sympathy with the times, and volunteered
to stand sentinel. Accordingly, he was posted at the ragged
window-curtain, where, with excess of caution, he signalled whenever
he saw a Christian, in uniform or no. At every signal David's oratory
ceased as suddenly as if it had been turned off at the main, and the
gaberdined figures, distributed over the two beds and the one chair,
gripped one another nervously. But David was used to oratory under
difficulties. He lived on the same terms with the police as the most
desperate criminals, and a foreigner who should have witnessed the
secret meetings at which tactics were discussed, arms distributed,
scouts despatched, and night-watches posted, would have imagined him
engaged in a rebellion instead of in an attempt to strengthen the
forces of law and order.

He had come to Milovka, he explained, to warn them that the Black
Hundreds were soon to be loosed upon the Jewish quarter. But no longer
must the Jew go like a lamb to the shambles. Too long, when smitten,
had he turned the other cheek, only to get it smitten too. They must
defend themselves. He was there to form a branch of the _Samooborona_.
Browning revolvers must be purchased. The wood-choppers must be
organized as a column of axe-bearers. There would be needed also an
ambulance corps, with bandages, dressings, etc.

The shudder at the first mention of the _pogrom_ was not so violent as
that which followed the mention of bandages. Each man felt warm blood
trickling down his limbs. To what end, then, had he escaped the
conscription? The landlord at the window wiped the cold beads off his
brow, and was surprised to find his hand not scarlet.

'Brethren,' Koski the timber-merchant burst out, 'this is a Haman in
disguise. To hold firearms is the surest way of provoking----'

'I don't say _you_ shall hold firearms!' David interrupted. 'It is
your young men who must defend the town. But the _Kahal_
(congregation) must pay the expenses--say, ten thousand roubles to
start with.'

'Ten thousand roubles for a few pistols!' cried Mendel the
horse-dealer. 'It is a swindle.'

David flushe