ous silence. They did not reply, for, as I
afterwards discovered, they had taken me for a high police official from
Petersburg, thus accounting for the innkeeper's courtesy.

"Tell me," I said, addressing the wrinkled-faced old Pole, "what is
happening over yonder?"

"The Cossacks," he stammered. "Krasiloff and his Cossacks are upon us.
They have just entered the town and are shooting down people everywhere.
Hartmann, the great patriot from Germany, has arrived, and the fight for
freedom has commenced, excellency. But it is horrible. A poor woman was
shot dead before my door half an hour ago, and her body taken away by
the soldiers."

Tired as I was, I lost no time. With a glance to see that my own
revolver was loaded, I threw aside my overcoat, and, leaving the inn,
walked across the bridge into a poor narrow street of wretched-looking
houses, many of them built of wood. A man limped slowly past me, wounded
in the leg, and leaving blood-spots behind him as he went. An old woman
was seated in a doorway, her face buried in her hands, wailing:

"My poor son!--dead!--dead!"

Before me I saw a great barricade composed of trees, household
furniture, paving-stones, overturned carts, pieces of barbed wire--in
fact, everything and anything the populace could seize upon for the
construction of hasty defence. Upon the top, silhouetted against the
clear frosty sky, was the scarlet flag of the revolution--the Red
Rooster was crowing!

Excited men were there, armed with rifles, shouting and giving orders.
Then I saw that a small space had been left open against the wall of a
house so that persons might pass and repass.

As I approached a wild-haired man shouted to me and beckoned
frantically. I grasped his meaning. He wished me to come within. I ran
forward, entered the town proper, and a few moments later the opening
was closed by a dozen slabs of stone being heaped up into it by as many
willing hands.

Thus I found myself in the very centre of the revolution, behind the
barricades, of which there were, it seemed, six or seven. From the rear
there was constant firing, and the streets in the vicinity were, I saw
to my horror, already filled with dead and wounded. Women were wailing
over husbands, lovers, brothers; men over their daughters and wives.
Even children of tender age were lying helpless and wounded, some of
them shattered and dead.

Ah! that sight was sickening. Never had I seen wholesale butchery such
as that