We hurried along on foot, and a minute or two later we entered the Jewish quarter and were in the midst of a hellish scene, lighted luridly by the glare of the burning houses. The road was strewn with battered corpses, some lying in heaps; and burly moujiks, shrieking unsexed viragoes, and brutal soldiers, maddened with vodka, delirious with the lust of blood and pillage, were sacking the houses that were not yet ablaze, destroying, in insensate fury, what they were unable to carry off, fighting like demons over their plunder. Here and there were groups of soldiers, who, though they were not joining in the work of destruction, made no effort to check it, but looked on with grim jests. I saw one present his rifle, fire haphazard into the crowd, and yell with devilish mirth as his victim fell, and the confusion increased.
His laugh was cut short, for Loris knocked the rifle out of his hand, and sternly ordered him back to the barracks, if that was all he could do towards restoring order.
The man and his comrades stared stupidly. They did not know who he was, but his uniform and commanding presence had their effect. The ruffians stood at attention, saluted and asked for orders!
“Clear the streets,” he commanded sternly. “Drive the people back to their quarter and keep them there; and do it without violence.”
He stood frowning, revolver in hand, and watched them move off with sheepish alacrity and begin their task, which would not have been an easy one if the soldiers had been under discipline. But there was no discipline; I did not see a single officer in the streets that night.
“Are you wise?” Mishka growled unceremoniously, as we moved off. I saw now that he and his father were also in uniform, and I surmise that every one who saw us took the Grand Duke to be an officer in high command, and us members of his staff.
We had our revolvers ready, but no one molested us, and as we made our way towards the synagogue, Loris more than once repeated his commands to the idle soldiers, with the same success.
Barzinsky’s inn, where Mishka and I had slept less than a fortnight back, was utterly wrecked, though the fire had not yet reached it, and in a heap in the roadway was the corpse of a woman, clad in a dirty bedgown. Her wig was gone and her skull battered in, but I knew it was the placid, capable, good-tempered landlady herself. The stumps of her hands lay palm down in a pool of blood,—all the fingers gone. She had worn rings, poor soul.
But that was by no means the most sickening sight I saw on that night of horror!
We reached the square where the synagogue stood, and found it packed with a frenzied, howling mob, who were raging like wolves round the gaunt weather-worn stone building. There was no more firing, either from within or without.