"If you are a priest, read your breviary, and don't meddle to your hurt in military matters!"
The insurgents received unexpected support. The marines and half the grenadier regiments joined them. Their numbers grew and grew; the square echoed with the cry, "Long live the Constitution!"
Then the Czar himself rode up to them. The rebels saw him coming. It was a temptation to them to see him ride up unattended. A cavalry officer galloped up to him, a loaded pistol in his hand.
"What is your business?" the Czar asked, threateningly, as he came near. There was such a spell in his cold look that the foolhardy man, hiding his face, turned away his head and galloped back.
It was only by force that his followers could tear the Czar away from the scene of revolt.
It began to grow dusk.
The armies of Gog and Magog went on ever increasing, and darkness added its terrors to the rest. With night, axe and knife would begin their work; seventy thousand mujiks would decide who should be Russia's future ruler!
The generals entreated the Czar to give the signal to attack. He still hesitated. First, he tried to disperse the insurgents by means of a feigned attack upon the square of the enemy, and gave the Horse Guards orders to this effect. They were received by a salvo of artillery, and the Horse Guards retreated decimated. At that critical moment drums beating to attack were heard advancing from Morskoje Street, and Grand Duke Michael appeared at the head of the Moscow regiment. He had just returned from Moscow, and, hastily summoning those of his own regiment who had remained faithful to him, advanced against the rebels, and the fight began.
The noisiest of the insurgents, the heroes of the Bear's Paw, cleared out of the square at the first volley; the soldiers alone stood fire. The heroes of freedom fought heroically. The poor soldier, however, who fell without knowing why or wherefore, perhaps learned in his death-agony that she for whom he had fallen was a living goddess, who in some future time would make his descendants happy—the goddess of Freedom.
Until late in the night they held the square and repulsed the attacks of the imperial troops.