roar
of the crowd. Like the seventh and last wave that shatters a ship, that
last irresistible wave burst from the rear and reached the front ranks,
carrying them off their feet and engulfing them all. The dragoon was
about to repeat his blow. Vereshchagin with a cry of horror, covering
his head with his hands, rushed toward the crowd. The tall youth,
against whom he stumbled, seized his thin neck with his hands and,
yelling wildly, fell with him under the feet of the pressing, struggling
crowd.

Some beat and tore at Vereshchagin, others at the tall youth. And the
screams of those that were being trampled on and of those who tried to
rescue the tall lad only increased the fury of the crowd. It was a long
time before the dragoons could extricate the bleeding youth, beaten
almost to death. And for a long time, despite the feverish haste with
which the mob tried to end the work that had been begun, those who were
hitting, throttling, and tearing at Vereshchagin were unable to kill
him, for the crowd pressed from all sides, swaying as one mass with them
in the center and rendering it impossible for them either to kill him or
let him go.

"Hit him with an ax, eh!... Crushed?... Traitor, he sold Christ....
Still alive... tenacious... serves him right! Torture serves a thief
right. Use the hatchet!... What--still alive?"

Only when the victim ceased to struggle and his cries changed to a
long-drawn, measured death rattle did the crowd around his prostrate,
bleeding corpse begin rapidly to change places. Each one came
up, glanced at what had been done, and with horror, reproach, and
astonishment pushed back again.

"O Lord! The people are like wild beasts! How could he be alive?" voices
in the crowd could be heard saying. "Quite a young fellow too... must
have been a merchant's son. What men!... and they say he's not the right
one.... How not the right one?... O Lord! And there's another has been
beaten too--they say he's nearly done for.... Oh, the people... Aren't
they afraid of sinning?..." said the same mob now, looking with pained
distress at the dead body with its long, thin, half-severed neck and its
livid face stained with blood and dust.

A painstaking police officer, considering the presence of a corpse in
his excellency's courtyard unseemly, told the dragoons to take it away.
Two dragoons took it by its distorted legs and dragged it along the
ground. The gory, dust-stained, half-shaven head with its long neck