"Where did you get those weapons?"
"I made them," Jack explained. "I can cut one out in three hours."
"And why," inquired the officer, "have you a pistol without a barrel?"
"It flew off when I fired," replied Eustace.
The officer laughed, and the policeman searched the would-be-soldiers' pockets. He found in them some home-made gunpowder, a pipe-lighter, and a bottle containing some liquid. He discovered that the pipe-lighter was for the purpose of making a fire, and that the bottle contained spirit to put in the pipe-lighter. The boys had come prepared with everything for the campaign. To their great distress they were taken to the railway station and sent back to their parents. The Russian writer who tells the story thus concludes: "God grant, little children, that you may preserve the fire of your loyal little hearts till the day when you are men, and then Russia will have need of you."
You know that the Germans and Austrians made great efforts to win over the Poles by all sorts of lavish promises. Professor Bernard Pares, an Englishman with the Russian army, tells us that most of the Poles remained faithful to the Tsar, and that they were confident that he would set up their old kingdom again when he was victorious. "I saw at Kielce," he says, "ample evidence of the enthusiasm of the Poles for the Russian cause. They show the greatest courtesy and kindness to Russians, especially in the villages. I am told on good evidence that when a German soldier defaced a portrait of the Tsar, a Polish official struck him in the face, and for this was bound to a telegraph pole for two days, and then taken down and shot. . . . Yesterday the commander of a Russian army corps at Radom,[164] where the Germans had remained over a month, issued the following letter of thanks to the people of the town:—
"'Poles,—Our wounded officers and soldiers, and also our prisoners who had fallen into the hands of the enemy, and had passed through the town or province of Radom, speak with deep gratitude of your cordial treatment of them. You have tended the wounded, fed the starving, and clothed and sheltered from the enemy those escaping from captivity. You have given them money and guided them to our lines. Accept from me, and from all ranks of the Army entrusted to me, warm and hearty thanks for all your kindness, for your Slavonic sympathy and goodness.'"
A correspondent thus describes the touching spectacle which was to be seen every day at the Sacred Gate of Vilna,[165] when the fate of Warsaw was hanging in the balance: "Above the gateway is a chapel with wide open doors showing a richly-gilded and flower-decked image of the Virgin. At one side stands a row of leaden organ pipes, at the other stands a priest. Music is wafted through the air with incense and the sound of prayers. Down below in the narrow, muddy roadway kneel many poor men and women with prayer-books in their hands. They are Poles. But through the gateway come incessantly, all day and all night, Russian troops going to the front. And every soldier or officer as he comes lifts his hat and passes through the praying throng uncovered. This is beautiful. Let Russia always be so in the presence of the Mother of Poland."