In an instant the street was in an uproar.
CHAPTER XLVI
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
The whole thing happened far more quickly than it can be told. I dragged Anne back from the window, slammed the shutters to,—for one of the Cossacks’ favorite tricks was to fire at any one seen at a window in the course of a street row,—and, curtly bidding Anne stay where she was for the moment, rushed downstairs and out into the street, revolver in hand.
Mishka and half a dozen of our men were before me; there were very few of us in the house just now; most of the others were with Loris and Vassilitzi, attending a big procession and meeting in Marchalkowskaia, with their usual object,—to maintain order as far as possible, and endeavor to prevent conflicts between the troops and the people. It was astonishing how much Loris had achieved in this way, even during these last terrible days of riot and bloodshed. He was ever on the alert; he seemed to know by instinct how to seize the right moment to turn the temper of the crowd or the soldiers, and avert disaster; and his splendid personality never failed in its almost magnetic effect on every one who came in contact with it. He was a born leader of men!
And, although he was always to the fore in every affair, as utterly reckless of his own safety as he was anxious to secure the safety of others, he had hitherto come unscathed through everything, though a couple of our men had been killed outright, several others badly wounded, and the rest of us had got a few hard knocks one way or other. I’d had a bullet through my left arm, the arm that was broken in the scrimmage outside Petersburg in June, a flesh wound only, luckily, though it hurt a bit when I had time to think of it,—which wasn’t often.
By the time we got into the street, the affair was over. The Cossacks, urging their ponies at the usual wild gallop, and firing wantonly up at the houses, since the people who had been in the street had rushed for cover, were almost out of sight; and on the road and sidewalk near at hand were several killed and wounded,—mostly women,—besides Madame Levinska, who had been the cause of it all, and had paid with her life.
She was a hideous sight, she who five minutes before had been so gay, so audacious, so full of vivacity. The brutes had riddled her prostrate body with bullets, slashed at it with their whips, trampled it under their horses’ hoofs; and it lay huddled, shapeless, with scarce a semblance to humanity left in it.