he uttered a stiff oath. Yet the
malice, the blind dark malice of a slave also streamed hotly through
his teeth. Disturbed by the light shed upon it, it hissed like a
snake, writhing in venomous words.

"Heretics!" a man with a broken voice shouted from a window, shaking
his fist threateningly.

A piercing scream importunately bored into the mother's ears--"Rioting
against the emperor, against his Majesty the Czar? No, no?"

Agitated people flashed quickly past her, a dark lava stream of men and
women, carried along by this song, which cleared every obstacle out of
its path.

Growing in the mother's breast was the mighty desire to shout to the
crowd:

"Oh, my dear people!"

There, far away from her, was the red banner--she saw her son without
seeing him--his bronzed forehead, his eyes burning with the bright fire
of faith. Now she was in the tail of the crowd among the people who
walked without hurrying, indifferent, looking ahead with the cold
curiosity of spectators who know beforehand how the show will end. They
spoke softly with confidence.

"One company of infantry is near the school, and the other near the
factory."

"The governor has come."

"Is that so?"

"I saw him myself. He's here."

Some one swore jovially and said:

"They've begun to fear our fellows, after all, haven't they? The
soldiers have come and the governor----"

"Dear boys!" throbbed in the breast of the mother. But the words
around her sounded dead and cold. She hastened her steps to get away
from these people, and it was not difficult for her to outstrip their
lurching gait.

Suddenly the head of the crowd, as it were, bumped against something;
its body swung backward with an alarming, low hum. The song trembled,
then flowed on more rapidly and louder; but again the dense wave of
sounds hesitated in its forward course. Voices fell out of the chorus
one after the other. Here and there a voice was raised in the effort
to bring the song to its previous height, to push it forward:

"Rise up, awake, you workingmen!
On, on, to war, you hungry hosts!"

Though she saw nothing and was ignorant of what was happening there in
front, the mother divined, and elbowed her way rapidly through the
crowd.

CHAPTER XX

"Comrades!" the voice of Pavel was heard. "Soldiers are people the
same as ourselves. They will not strike us! Why should they beat us?
Because we bear the truth necessary for all? This ou