"You are a noble boy," exclaimed the Rabbi, grasping his hand, affectionately. "Kathinka, get Joseph some supper; he must be hungry."
"You are right, Rabbi," returned Joseph. "I am hungry and tired, and yet since I have seen Kathinka I am supremely happy."
It was a sad and fearful night. Sleep was out of the question for the threatened Israelites. All night long the noise of hammering could be heard; the Christians were attaching little wooden crosses to their houses that they might be spared by the mob. The Jews gathered their portable treasures and trinkets and conveyed them to places of safety.
The morning of the eighth of May dawned; a quiet serene Sunday morning, the day on which is proclaimed throughout Christendom the golden rule: "Love your enemies."
At an early hour armed gangs appeared on the streets, wandering hither and thither, without any definite plan or object. Ringleaders, however, were not long in making their appearance.
As in Elizabethgrad, the first act of the mob was to storm the dram-shops; it needed the inspiration of vodki. Having broken in the doors and windows, they rolled the barrels out into the street. Vodki flowed in streams; the rioters waded, they bathed, they wallowed in whiskey. The women carried it away by the pailful. From shop to shop they went, becoming more hilarious, more boisterous as they proceeded. Through the uproar could be heard their shouts: "The Jews have lorded it over us long enough; it is our turn now! Down with the Jews!"
They came to the inn of a man named Rykelmann and here they met their first resistance. Rykelmann refused to admit them. He had barricaded himself and his family behind stout doors and stood guard over his premises with a pistol. The mob besieged the place from all sides and finally succeeded in forcing an entrance in the rear. The poor proprietor was forced to accompany the rioters to his wine cellar, where they amused themselves staving in the barrels and breaking the bottles, while some of the drunken ruffians in the rooms above cut the throats of his wife and six children. It was the first blood shed in Kief and it served to stimulate the appetites of the vampires.
Onward sped the rioters. They divided into groups, each, under a self-appointed leader, attacking a different quarter. Here and there houses were burning fiercely, and to the crackling of the flames was added the piteous cries of women and children consigned to a fiery death.
At this stage several companies of soldiers, headed by Loris Drentell, appeared upon the scene. The Governor fearing that Christians might suffer in the general massacre, had at length yielded to the importunities of his counsellors and sent his son with a detachment of men as a protection, not to the Jews, but to the Christians. Loris had returned to Kief shortly after the assassination of the Czar.
For an hour the soldiers allowed the work of destruction to go on unhindered, and then, no longer able to control their appetites, they joined the mob.