The Rabbi's wife, Recha, succeeding in escaping the vigilance of the invading party and hurried into the outer room. Suddenly her eyes encountered the form of her husband lying upon the floor, bathed in blood and apparently dead. With a shriek she threw herself upon his prostrate body. When her friends attempted to move her after the danger had passed, they found that terror and grief had done their work. Recha had lost her reason.
On his entrance into the room, Loris gazed about him, and soon singled out Kathinka, standing among her friends, silently praying. With a cry of mingled joy and rage, he threw himself upon her and put his arms firmly around her.
"Ha! beautiful Kathinka!" he said, ironically; "so we meet again. How happy you must be to see me! Yes, I love you still, and you shall be mine, all mine! Don't struggle, sweet one; I shall remove you to my dwelling, far from all this noise and tumult. Ho, there! make room there for me and my prize!"
Lifting the struggling maiden in his arms, he pressed through the crowd, out into the street. There he set down his precious burden and paused to regain his breath.
Kathinka looked hastily about her. There were many in the crowd who had known her since her childhood, many whom her father had befriended, but they stood passively by and abstained from offering her either assistance or sympathy. Then, as Loris again wound his arms about her; she cried loudly for help:
"Come to my aid," she cried, imploringly. "Do none of you know me; will none lend me a helping hand? I am Kathinka, the daughter of Rabbi Winenki! Will no one raise his arm in my defence?"
There was no reply to her appeal; the rioters had no mercy for the despised Jewess.
Of a sudden the crowd parted. Thank God, there was a champion for Kathinka. Mikail the priest elbowed his way through the dense mass of maddened humanity and with eyes wilder and face more haggard than before, he approached the shrieking girl. With a cry of fury, he fell upon Loris and endeavored to tear him from his victim. Loris was for a moment too astonished to offer any resistance.
"What do you want with me, priest?" he cried, angrily, when he recognized his assailant.
"I am here to remind you of your honor, of your manhood; to plead with you in behalf of that poor maiden. You shall not harm a hair of her head while I have strength to defend her."