They had beaten the troops; had sent them scurrying like frightened hares to cover; they had carried the cause of the people to triumph; they had spilt the blood of the oppressor; and the taste of it made them drunk with the joy of the new found power and strength.
Some one started the Polish national air. The strain was caught up and echoed by a thousand deep-toned, tuneful voices with an impression to be remembered to one’s dying hour.
A crowd came round me as I stood by the two dead bodies.
Bremenhof’s corpse was kicked and cursed and spat upon, till I sickened at the sight.
Ladislas was lifted and borne away, with the care and honour due to a martyr, to the strains of the national air. The revolution had begun in terrible earnestness; and that day’s fight was its baptism of blood.
As the men bore Ladislas away, I went back to Volna to tell her the grim news and get her away to a place of safety.
CHAPTER XXX
AFTER THE STORM
THE death of Colonel Bremenhof caused a profound sensation; and the most varied and contradictory reports were circulated about it.
The authorities branded it assassination, and threatened the most rigorous punishment of those whom they deemed the murderers.
The members of the Fraternity were charged with responsibility for it; and were declared to have laid a deep and far-reaching plot to destroy him as one of the chief executive leaders of the government.