; dark, massed figures were in the distance swimming
toward her along the glistening line of the car tracks, and she heard the
shrill whistling of the doffer boys, who acted as a sort of fife corps in
these parades--which by this time had become familiar to the citizens of
Hampton. And Janet remembered when the little red book that contained
the songs had arrived at Headquarters from the west and had been
distributed by thousands among the strikers. She recalled the words of
this song, though the procession was as yet too far away for her to
distinguish them:--

"The People's flag is deepest red,
It shrouded oft our martyred dead,
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,
Their life-blood dyed its every fold."

The song ceased, and she stood still, waiting for the procession to reach
her. A group of heavy Belgian women were marching together. Suddenly,
as by a simultaneous impulse, their voices rang out in the
Internationale--the terrible Marseillaise of the workers:--

"Arise, ye prisoners of starvation!
Arise, ye wretched of the earth!"

And the refrain was taken up by hundreds of throats:--

"'Tis the final conflict,
Let each stand in his place!"

The walls of the street flung it back. On the sidewalk, pressed against
the houses, men and women heard it with white faces. But Janet was
carried on.... The scene changed, now she was gazing at a mass of human
beings hemmed in by a line of soldiers. Behind the crowd was a row of
old-fashioned brick houses, on the walls of which were patterned, by the
cold electric light, the branches of the bare elms ranged along the
sidewalk. People leaned out of the windows, like theatregoers at a play.
The light illuminated the red and white bars of the ensign, upheld by the
standard bearer of the regiment, the smaller flags flaunted by the
strikers--each side clinging hardily to the emblem of human liberty. The
light fell, too, harshly and brilliantly, on the workers in the front
rank confronting the bayonets, and these seemed strangely indifferent, as
though waiting for the flash of a photograph. A little farther on a group
of boys, hands in pockets, stared at the soldiers with bravado. From the
rear came that indescribable "booing" which those who have heard never
forget, mingled with curses and cries:--"Vive la greve!"

"To hell with the Cossacks!"

"Kahm on--shoot!"

The backs of the soldiers, determined, unyie