y, and with an abruptness that
was sickening the mob checked itself. I came in violent collision with
a large woman in front of me (the man with the split coat had vanished),
while those behind collided against me. A devilish pandemonium
reigned,--shrieks, curses, and cries of death, while above all rose the
churning rattle of machine-guns and the put-a-put, put-a-put of rifles.
At first I could make out nothing. People were falling about me right
and left. The woman in front doubled up and went down, her hands on her
abdomen in a frenzied clutch. A man was quivering against my legs in a
death-struggle.

It came to me that we were at the head of the column. Half a mile of it
had disappeared--where or how I never learned. To this day I do not know
what became of that half-mile of humanity--whether it was blotted out
by some frightful bolt of war, whether it was scattered and destroyed
piecemeal, or whether it escaped. But there we were, at the head of the
column instead of in its middle, and we were being swept out of life by
a torrent of shrieking lead.

As soon as death had thinned the jam, Garthwaite, still grasping my arm,
led a rush of survivors into the wide entrance of an office building.
Here, at the rear, against the doors, we were pressed by a panting,
gasping mass of creatures. For some time we remained in this position
without a change in the situation.

"I did it beautifully," Garthwaite was lamenting to me. "Ran you right
into a trap. We had a gambler's chance in the street, but in here
there is no chance at all. It's all over but the shouting. Vive la
Revolution!"

Then, what he expected, began. The Mercenaries were killing without
quarter. At first, the surge back upon us was crushing, but as the
killing continued the pressure was eased. The dead and dying went down
and made room. Garthwaite put his mouth to my ear and shouted, but in
the frightful din I could not catch what he said. He did not wait. He
seized me and threw me down. Next he dragged a dying woman over on top
of me, and, with much squeezing and shoving, crawled in beside me and
partly over me. A mound of dead and dying began to pile up over us, and
over this mound, pawing and moaning, crept those that still survived.
But these, too, soon ceased, and a semi-silence settled down, broken by
groans and sobs and sounds of strangulation.

I should have been crushed had it not been for Garthwaite. As it was,
it seemed inconceivable that I cou