“Damnation!” yelled the officer. “I’ll take you both, then!” But the girl in the Sister of Mercy’s garb turned and violently pushed the novice from her so that she stumbled and fell on her knees among the nuns.
Then, confronting the officer: “You Bolshevik dog,” she said contemptuously, “don’t you even know the daughter of your dead Emperor when you see her!” And she struck him across the face with her prayer book.
As he recoiled from the blow a soldier shouted: “There’s your proof! There’s your insolent Romanoff for you! To hell with the whole litter! Shoot them!” Instantly a savage roar from the Reds filled that dim place; a soldier violently pushed the young Tzesarevitch into the file behind the Empress and held him xxvii there; the Grand Duchess Olga was flung bodily after him; the other children, in their hospital dresses, were shoved brutally toward their places, menaced by butt and bayonet.
“March!” bawled the officer in command.
But now, among the dark-garbed nuns, a slender white figure was struggling frantically to free herself:
“You red dogs!” she cried in an agonised voice. “Let that English woman go! It is I you want! Do you hear! I mock at you! I mock at your resolution! Boje Tzaria Khrani! Down with the Bolsheviki!”
A soldier turned and fired at her; the bullet smashed an ikon above her head.
“I am the Grand Duchess Marie!” she sobbed. “I demand my place! I demand my fate! Let that American girl go! Do you hear what I say? Red beasts! Red beasts! I am the Grand Duchess!–––”
The officer who closed the file turned savagely and shook his heavy cavalry sabre at her: “I’ll come back in a moment and cut your throat for you!” he yelled.
Then, in the file, and just as the last bayonets were vanishing through the crypt door, one of the young girls turned and kissed her hand to the sobbing novice––a pretty gesture, tender, gay, not tragic, even almost mischievously triumphant.