"No, I will tell you all frankly. I have been threatened with arrest; for what, I know not. I have been advised to absent myself, and I come to you to shelter me a little while from the storm."
"The storm is still far from its end. The clouds thicken; but come what will I receive you with all my heart, and my house is at your service."
"I am at present at the hotel."
Jankiel rose, went to the door, and called by name a Jew who was passing, and who came running to him.
"Go and get this gentleman's luggage at the hotel, and bring it to the chamber opposite mine.
"I will not permit you to dwell away from me," said he. "There is in this village a regiment of soldiers, who search every traveller. You will be safe here. But much as I desire your company, and you know how welcome you are, yet believe me it will be better for you to leave this place. There will soon be trouble here. The Russians are letting the revolution grow, so as to have a greater chance for pillage. I have been through all this before, in 1809, 1812, and 1831. What the result will be now, God only knows; but I fear the worst."
After a moment of silence and visible embarrassment, he added:--
"My wife is ill, my daughter is ill, and our house is in mourning. Only the holy books help me to bear my sorrow. Those people," he pointed to the house of the Davids, "are gone. One to the city, the other, it is said, to the insurgents. I do not congratulate them on the acquisition. Unhappy is the cause which is upheld by impure men!"
Jankiel and Jacob were reading, when suddenly there was heard in the silent street the sound of horses galloping over the uneven pavement. From the window they saw in the square below a group of Cossacks and several carts. There were savage cries, and then, in a vibrating voice, came an order for silence from the commander.
Jankiel sent out for information. A detachment of Russian soldiers, the advance guard of several regiments, escorted a chief of the rebels taken in a bloody combat, wounded and dying. The straw bed on the cart where the man lay was soaked with blood, and yet, if alive, he would be hung on the morrow! Such was the story told by the soldiers, who soon spread themselves through the dwellings of the village.