"I'll tell you what I think of——"
"Look, listen," she had gripped his arm. Across the square, on the hill of the General Staff building, something was in motion. The Kropotkin professor had a field glass which was being passed round. Kent, in his turn, caught a glimpse of the scene in front of the building, a solitary figure in the middle, and lower down, in front of it, files of soldiers. He passed the glass on to Kikuchi.
"My God, Kent-san," Kikuchi handed it back to him. "Take another look. Don't you see, it's him, the Devil himself, General Matsu, chief of the General Staff."
From the top of the hill the bugle sounded again. A roar, explosions from all sides, flashes from the other side of the moat, from the ramparts of the palace grounds, from the top of the hill. Then, abruptly, a moment of silence, of bewilderment, sudden occurrence and sudden cessation of the sound having a theatrical effect, as if a pianist had finished a rather tedious composition with a sudden sweep of hand crashing across the full stretch of bass octaves. It stunned them, and the crowd stood dumb, numbed, unbelieving. Then it was as if at precisely the same instant the full meaning of what had happened came to all, a revelation of despair; they were surrounded, troops on all sides, hemmed them in, tens of thousands. From all sides they crowded, milling against the center, seeking escape. Kent pushed the girl before him, up towards the top of the pedestal, he and the rest climbing up its terraced sides to avoid the sea of humanity surging frantically about them. Whimsically, there came to his mind a picture from the Doré Bible, a picture of the flood, a group of humans and animals seeking on an isolated rocky peak escape from the rising waters.
"Damn them, they have some sense yet, these militarists," there was a note of admiration in the voice of the Russian. "Here they have managed to trap the best part of the country's radical leaders, half of them at least. I wonder if——"
From the hill top came the notes of the bugle, clear, unfaltering, like a maneuver call. Immediately another crash of rifles, just one volley. They were shooting more accurately this time, or the officers were compelling the men to do so. All along the edges of the mob they were falling, men and women, children even, rolling down the steep slopes into the moat, or falling under the feet of the mass, milling about, stampeded, driven in upon itself from all sides. Now the multitude had found its voice, but it was inarticulate, shrieks, cries and groans mingling into a vast volume of sound, meaningless, inhuman.
Another half minute. Again the bugle, followed by a single volley. Another half minute, another volley. The crowd was like insane creatures, those at the edges fighting their way in, those in the middle struggling frantically to escape, and, every thirty seconds, the bugle call, and the single sharp volley, with military precision, from all sides.
"I didn't think they had it in them, that they had that much imagination," there was open admiration in the Russian's tone now. "Don't you see it, Kent-san, the devilish cleverness of it all. It's not the shooting that's the worst; it's the suspense, the waiting, the bugle call and the knowledge of the death that comes with it. That's what they will remember to their dying day, all those who escape, if they let any one escape. That'll take the heart out of them. Such is life, the life of a revolutionist, Kent-san. They're setting us back ten years to-day, damn them, but we'll get them in the end."
Time had come for the next bugle call. It seemed overdue, a longer interval than before. They almost wanted it to come, to have it over with. Surely the interval was long. They began to glance about, at one another. Was it possible? Face peered anxiously into face, each seeking to read confirmation of his own hope. Had the killing really ceased, or was this but another refinement of cruelty?