t day, they found the child dead, and Pelikoff a
hopeless maniac.

Night brought a cessation of hostilities, but not a glimmer of hope.

With early dawn, the outrages recommenced. The synagogue now became the
point of attack. Thither many of the women and children had fled for
refuge, and the mob, actuated rather by lust than by love of plunder,
proceeded to demolish the building, which they set on fire. The poor
women, as they fled from the burning pile, were set upon and cruelly
assaulted by the rioters. All that day and the next, the Hebrew quarter
was at the mercy of the savages. What the ax did not crush, fire
destroyed. Five hundred houses and over one hundred stores and shops
were ransacked; whole streets were demolished; property to the value of
two million roubles was destroyed, and upwards of twenty people lost
their lives while defending their possessions or their honor.

Thus ended the first anti-semitic riot. The plans for General Drentell's
vengeance, through Mikail the priest, were in a fair way of being
realized.[20]

CHAPTER XXXIV.

RABBI AND PRIEST MEET.

The enemies of the Jews persisted in their attacks. Ignorant greed,
commercial rivalry, religious intolerance, all played their part in
shaping coming events. The mobs soon had ringleaders; unscrupulous
agitators who counted on the gain they could derive from a general
pillage of the property of the wealthy Israelites.

The greatest terror reigned in Kief. But for the example of a few
energetic men, prominent among whom was Rabbi Winenki, the Hebrew
population would have been in despair.

Thousands of Jews, driven out of Elizabethgrad by the atrocities
committed at that place, fled to Kief and implored shelter of their
hospitable co-religionists. They were for the greater part destitute of
the commonest necessities of life. Their appeal was not in vain. The
charitable Jews opened their houses, and there was scarcely a home that
did not entertain one or more refugees.

Rabbi Winenki hastily called a conference of his friends to devise means
of assisting these unfortunates to emigrate. The project met with
immediate approval, and an association was formed to aid all those who
desired to find a home in distant America.

General Drentell heard of this benevolent undertaking, and while he was
not unwilling to drive the Jews out of the Empire, he deemed it the duty
of the Israelites to consult with him before engaging in any project
whi