"Arrest him!" shouted the police captain. But his voice was drowned in the confused outburst of shouts.
"Down with the autocracy!"
The police rushed through the crowd toward the orator who, closely surrounded on all sides, shouted, waving his hand:
"Long live liberty! We will live and die for it!"
The mother shut her eyes in momentary fear. The boisterous tempest of confused sounds deafened her. The earth rocked under her feet; terror impeded her breathing. The startling whistles of the policemen pierced the air. The rude, commanding voice of the captain was heard; the women cried hysterically. The wooden fences cracked, and the heavy tread of many feet sounded dully on the dry ground. A sonorous voice, subduing all the other voices, blared like a war trumpet:
"Comrades! Calm yourselves! Have more respect for yourselves! Let me go! Comrades, I insist, let me go!"
The mother looked up, and uttered a low exclamation. A blind impulse carried her forward with outstretched hands. Not far from her, on a worn path between the graves, the policemen were surrounding the long-haired man and repelling the crowd that fell upon them from all sides. The unsheathed bayonets flashed white and cold in the air, flying over the heads of the people, and falling quickly again with a spiteful hiss. Broken bits of the fence were brandished; the baleful shouts of the struggling people rose wildly.
The young man lifted his pale face, and his firm, calm voice sounded above the storm of irritated outcries:
"Comrades! Why do you spend your strength? Our task is to arm the heads."
He conquered. Throwing away their sticks, the people dropped out of the throng one after the other; and the mother pushed forward. She saw how Nikolay, with his hat fallen back on his neck, thrust aside the people, intoxicated with the commotion, and heard his reproachful voice: