"Silence, you viper! Well, why don't you move? We want to know where your boys are sleeping!"
Mordecai, convinced of the futility of resistance, shuffled across the floor in his bare feet, and opened the door of an adjoining room. There, in the innocence of youth, lay Mendel, dreaming, perhaps, of his recent triumphs. An unpitying hand landed the boy upon the floor. Paralyzed with fear, he could not speak, but gazed pleadingly from his father to the soldiers. His uncle Bensef, who had shared his bed, now endeavored to interfere, but a blow from the stalwart Cossack sent him to the opposite corner of the room. Quickly they inspected the boy, taking a mental note of his height and appearance, and, barely giving him time to put on his clothing, hurried him into the arms of the soldiers waiting without.
"You have another son! Where is he?" demanded one of the soldiers of the half-paralyzed Mordecai.
"No! no!" he sobbed; "I have no more!"
"You lie, Jew! Show us the other boy!" And without further ceremony, they broke into the third room, where Jacob lay in the arms of his terrified mother.
In vain the boy shrieked at the sight of the fierce-looking visitors. In vain the mother pleaded: "He is sick and helpless. Spare him. He is but a baby. Leave him with me!"
There was no pity in the breasts of the hardened soldiers. Neither tears nor entreaties won them over. The more the sorrowing parents implored, the louder were the oaths, the fiercer the blows of the barbarous Cossacks.
Jacob, followed by his weeping parents, was carried half-dressed into the street.
Similar scenes were enacted in every house in which there were male children. Of the twelve Jewish homes in Togarog, but two were spared. The children, in most cases scantily dressed, were hurried to Basilivitch's hostlery, where wagons were in waiting to take them to Alexandrovsk for the Governor's inspection.
Mournful was the train that followed the little band through the village. Shrieks and lamentations, prayers and imprecations resounded, until the brutal guards, wearied by the incessant clamor, finally drove the frenzied people back and set out upon their homeward journey.