I stood undecided. I was facing death. Those Cossacks with orders to massacre would give no quarter, and would not discriminate. Krasiloff was waiting for his dastardly order to be carried out. The Czar had given him instructions to crush the revolution by whatever means he thought proper.
Those moments of suspense seemed hours. Suddenly there was another flash, a stunning report, the air was filled with debris, and a great breach opened in the barricade. The Cossacks had used explosives to clear away the obstruction. Next instant they were upon us.
I flew--flew for my life. Whither my legs carried me I know not. Women's despairing shrieks rent the air on every hand. The massacre had commenced. I remember I dashed into a long, narrow street that seemed half deserted, then turned corner after corner, but behind me, ever increasing, rose the cries of the doomed populace. The Cossacks were following the people into their houses and killing men, women, and even children.
Suddenly, as I turned into a side street, I saw that it led into a large open thoroughfare, the main road through the town, I expect. And there, straight before me, I saw that an awful scene was being enacted.
I turned to run back, but at that instant a woman's long, despairing cry reached me, causing me to glance within a doorway, where stood a big, brutal Cossack, who had pursued and captured a pretty, dark-haired, well-dressed girl.
"Save me!" she shrieked as I passed. "Oh, save me, sir!" she gasped, white, terrified, and breathless with struggling. "He will kill me!"
The burly soldier had his bearded face close down to hers, his arms clasped around her, and had evidently forced her from the street into the entry.
For a second I hesitated.
"Oh, sir, save me! Save me, and God will reward you!" she implored, her big, dark eyes turned to mine in final appeal.
The fellow at that moment raised his fist and struck her a brutal blow upon the mouth that caused the blood to flow, saying with a savage growl:
"Be quiet, will you?"
"Let that woman go!" I commanded in the best Russian I could.
In an instant, with a glare in his fiery eyes, for the blood-lust was within him, he turned upon me and sneeringly asked who I was to give him orders, while the poor girl reeled, half stunned by his blow.
"Let her go I say!" I shouted, advancing quickly towards him.
But in a moment he had drawn his big army revolver, and, ere I became aware of his dastardly intention, he raised it to a few inches from her face.
Quick as thought I raised my own weapon, which I had held behind me, and, being accredited a fairly good shot, I fired in an endeavour to save the poor girl.
Fortunately my bullet struck, for he stepped back, his revolver dropped from his fingers upon the stones, and, stumbling forward, he fell dead at her feet without a word. My shot had, I saw, hit him in the temple, and death had probably been instantaneous.
With a cry of joy at her sudden release, the girl rushed across to me, and raising my left hand to her lips, kissed it, at the same time thanking me.
Then, for the first time, I recognised how uncommonly pretty she was.
Not more than eighteen, she was slim and petite, with a narrow waist and graceful figure--quite unlike in refinement and in dress the other women I had seen in Ostrog. Her dark hair had come unbound in her desperate struggle with the Cossack and hung about her shoulders, her bodice was torn and revealed a bare white neck, and her chest heaved and fell as in breathless, disjointed sentences she thanked me again and again.
There was not a second to lose, however. She was, I recognised, a Jewess, and Krasiloff's orders were not to spare them.
From the main street beyond rose the shouts and screams, the firing and wild triumphant yells as the terrible massacre progressed.
"Come with me!" she cried breathlessly. "Along here. I know of a place of safety!"
And she led the way, running swiftly for about two hundred yards, and then, turning into a narrow, dirty courtyard, passed through an evil, forbidding-looking house, where all was silent as the grave.
With a key she quickly opened the door of a poor, ill-furnished room, which she closed behind her, but did not lock. Then, opening a door on the opposite side, which had been papered over so as to escape observation, I saw there was a flight of damp stone stairs leading down to a cellar or some subterranean regions beneath the house.
"Down here!" she said, taking a candle, lighting it, and handing it to me. "Go--I will follow."
I descended cautiously into the cold, dank place, discovering it to be a kind of unlighted cellar hewn out of the rock. A table, a chair, a lamp, and some provisions showed that preparation had been made for concealment there, but ere I had entirely explored the place my pretty fellow-fugitive rejoined me.
"This, I hope, is a place of safety," she said. "They will not find us here. This is where Gustave lived before his flight."
"Gustave?" I repeated, looking her straight in the face.
She dropped her eyes and blushed. Her silence told its own tale. The previous occupant of that rock chamber was her lover.
Her name was Luba--Luba Lazareff, she told me. But of herself she would tell me nothing further. Her reticence was curious, yet before long I recognised the reason of her refusal.
In reply to further questions she said: "The Germans are our friends.
Two men from Berlin have been in Ostrog nearly a month holding secret meetings and urging us to rise."
"Do you know Hermann Hartmann?" I inquired.
"Ah! yes. He is the great patriot. He arrived here the day before yesterday to address us before the struggle," she replied enthusiastically.
Candle in hand, I was examining the deepest recesses of the dark, cavernous place, while she lit the lamp, when, to my surprise, I discovered at the further end a workman's bench, upon which were various pieces of turned metal, pieces of tube of various sizes, and little phials of glass like those used for the tiny tabloids for subcutaneous injections.
I took one up to examine it, but at that instant she noticed me and screamed in terror.
"Ah, sir! For heaven's sake, put that down--very carefully. Touch nothing there, or we may both be blown to pieces! See!" she added in a low, intense voice of confession, as she, dashed forward, "there are finished bombs there! Gustave could not carry them all away, so he left those with me."
"Then Gustave made these, eh?"
"Yes. And, see, he gave me this"--and she drew from her breast a small, shining cylinder of brass, a beautifully finished little object about four inches long similar to those used at the barricade. "He gave this to me to use--if necessary!" the girl added, a meaning flash in her dark eyes.
For a moment I was silent.
"Then you would have used it upon that Cossack?" I said slowly.
"That was my intention."
"And kill yourself, as well as your assailant?"
"I have promised him," was her simple answer.
"And this Gustave? You love him? Tell me all about him. Remember I am your friend, and will help you if I can."
She hesitated, and I was compelled to urge her again and again ere she would speak.
"Well, he is German--from Berlin," she said at last, as we still stood before the bomb-maker's bench. "He is a chemist, and, being an anarchist, came to us, and joined us in the Revolution. The petards thrown over the barricades to-day were of his make, but he had to fly.
He left yesterday."
"For Berlin?"
"Ah! How can I tell? The Cossacks may have caught and killed him. He may be dead," she added hoarsely.
"What direction has he taken?"