s would ride the whole way. It
meant a couple of days' delay in reaching Warsaw, but it seemed the
safest plan; and it worked without a hitch. By twos and threes we rode
into Warsaw in the early morning of the day that saw the beginning of
the great strike,--and of the revolution which will end only when the
Russian Empire becomes a Free Republic; and God only knows when that
will come to pass!

I have been through three regular campaigns in different parts of the
world during the last ten years, and had a good many thrilling
experiences, one way and another; but the weeks I spent in Warsaw in the
late fall of the year 1905 were the strangest and most eventful I've
ever gone through.

As I look back now, the whole thing seems like a long and vivid
nightmare, of which some few incidents stand out with dreadful
distinctness, and the rest is a mere blur, a confusion of shifting
figures and scenes; of noise and dust and bloodshed. Strenuous days of
street rioting and fighting, in which one and all of us did our share;
and when the row was over for the time being, turned our hands to
ambulance work. Nights that were even more strenuous than the days, for
in the night the next day's plan had to be decided on, funds and food
given out, the circulars (reporting progress and urging the people to
stand fast) to be drawn up, printed, and issued. Such publications were
prohibited, of course; but Warsaw, like most of the other cities, was
strewn with them. People read them, flaunting them openly before the
eyes of the authorities; and though the police and the soldiers tried
the plan of bayoneting or shooting at sight every one whom they saw with
a revolutionary print, they soon had to reserve it for any defenceless
woman or even child whom they might encounter. For the great majority of
the strikers were armed, and they showed themselves even quicker with
their revolvers and "killers" than the soldiers were with their rifles;
while every soldier killed represented one more rifle seized.

We reported ourselves on arrival, as arranged, at a spacious old house
in a narrow street near the University, which thenceforth became our
headquarters; and, within a few hours, a kind of hospital, also, for
there were soon many wounded to be cared for.

Anne organized a band of women as amateur nurses, with Natalya at
the head of them, in our house, while others were on duty elsewhere.
This quarter, as I found, was a stronghold of the League;