"Do!" cried the man, his voice choked with rage. "Do! You could die!"
"And the children?"
He was silent, looking down upon her. He began to realize the helplessness of her plight. In a strange land, she found herself without friends, and charged with the support of two children. The money he had given her she had invested in a house, through Rosenblatt, who insisted that payments were still due. No wonder he had terrified her into submission to his plans.
While his contempt remained, her husband's rage grew less. After a long silence he said, "Listen. This feast will last two days?"
"Yes, there is food and drink for two days."
"In two days my work here will be done. Then I go back. I must go back. My children! my children! what of my children? My dead Olga's children!" He began to pace the room. He forgot the woman on the floor. "Oh, fatherland! My fatherland!" he cried in a voice broken with passionate grief, "must I sacrifice these too for thee? God in heaven! Father, mother, brother, home, wife, all I have given. Must I give my children, too?" His strong dark face was working fiercely. His voice came harsh and broken. "No, no! By all the saints, no! I will keep my children for Olga's sake. I will let my wretched country go. What matter to me? I will make a new home in this free land and forget. Ah, God! Forget? I can never forget! These plains!" He tore aside the quilt from the window and stooping looked out upon the prairie. "These plains say Russia! This gleaming snow, Russia! Ah! Ah! Ah! I cannot forget, while I live, my people, my fatherland. I have suffered too much to forget. God forget me, if I forget!" He fell on his knees before the window, dry sobs shaking his powerful frame. He rose and began again to stride up and down, his hands locked before him. Suddenly he stood quite still, making mighty efforts to regain command of himself. For some moments he stood thus rigid.
The woman, who had been kneeling all the while, crept to his feet.
"My lord will give his children to me," she said in a low voice.
"You!" he cried, drawing back from her. "You! What could you do for them?"
"I could die for them," she said simply, "and for my lord."
"For me! Ha!" His voice carried unutterable scorn.
She cowered back to the floor.
"My children I can slay, but I will leave them in no house of lust."
"Oh!" she cried, clasping her hands upon her breast and swaying backwards and forwards upon her knees, "I will be a good woman. I will sin no more. Rosenblatt I shall send—"
"Rosenblatt!" cried the man with a fierce laugh. "After two days Rosenblatt will not be here."
"You will—?" gasped the woman.
"He will die," said the man quietly.
"Oh, my lord! Let me kill him! It would be easy for me at night when he sleeps. But you they will take and hang. In this country no one escapes. Oh! Do not you kill him. Let me."
Breathlessly she pleaded, holding him by the feet. He spurned her with contempt.
"Peace, fool! He is for none other than me. It is an old score. Ah, yes," he continued between his teeth, "it is an old score. It will be sweet to feel him slowly die with my fingers in his throat."
"But they will take you," cried the woman.
"Bah! They could not hold me in Siberia, and think you they can in this land? But the children," he mused. "Rosenblatt away." With a sudden resolve he turned to the woman. "Woman," he said, in a voice stern and low, "could you—"
She threw herself once more at his feet in a passion of entreaty. "Oh, my lord! Let me live for them, for them—and—for you!"
"For me?" he said coldly. "No. You have dishonoured my name. You are wife of mine no longer. Do you hear this?"
"Yes, yes," she panted, "I hear. I know. I ask nothing for myself. But the children, your children. I would live for them, would die for them!"
He turned from her and gazed through the window, pondering. That she would be faithful to the children he well knew. That she would gladly die for him, he was equally certain. With Rosenblatt removed, the house would be rid of the cause of her fall and her shame. There was no one else in this strange land to whom he could trust his children. Should death or exile take him in his work—and these were always his companions—his children would be quite alone. Once more he turned and looked down upon the kneeling woman. He had no love for her. He had never loved her. Simply as a matter of convenience he had married her, that she might care for the children of his dead wife whom he had loved with undying and passionate love.
"Paulina," he said solemnly, but the contempt was gone from his voice, "you are henceforth no wife of mine; but my children I give into your care."
Hitherto, during the whole interview, she had shed no tear, but at these words of his she flung her arms about his knees and burst into a passion of weeping.
"Oh, my lord! My dear lord! Oh, my lord! my lord!" she sobbed, wildly kissing his very boots.
He drew away from her and sat down upon a bench.
"Listen," he said. "I will send you money. You will require to take no man into your house for your support. Is there any one to whom I could send the money for you?"
She thought for a few moments.
"There is one," she said, "but she does not love me. She will come no longer into my house. She thinks me a bad woman." Her voice sank low. Her face flamed a dark red.
"Aha," said the man, "I would see that woman. To-morrow you will bring me to her. At dusk to-morrow I will pass your house. You will meet me. Now go."
She remained kneeling in her place. Then she crawled nearer his feet.
"Oh, my lord!" she sobbed, "I have done wrong. Will you not beat me? Beat me till the blood runs down. He was too strong for me. I was afraid for the children. I had no place to go. I did a great wrong. If my lord would but beat me till the blood runs down, it would be a joy to me."
It was the cry of justice making itself heard through her dull soul. It was the instinctive demand for atonement. It was the unconscious appeal for reinstatement to the privileges of wifehood.
"Woman," he said sternly, "a man may beat his wife. He will not strike a woman that is nothing to him. Go."
Once more she clutched his feet, kissing them. Then she rose and without a word went out into the dusky night. She had entered upon the rugged path of penitence, the only path to peace for the sinner.
After she had gone, the man stepped to the door and looked after her as if meditating her recall.
"Bah!" he said at length, "she is nothing to me. Let her go."
He put out the light, closed the door and passing through the crowd of revellers, went off to Simon's house.
The inside of Paulina's house was a wreck. The remains of benches and chairs and tables mingled with fragments of vessels of different sorts strewn upon the filth-littered floor, the windows broken, the door between the outer and inner rooms torn from its hinges, all this debris, together with the battered, bruised and bloody human shapes lying amidst their filth, gave eloquent testimony to the tempestuous character of the proceedings of the previous night.
The scene that greeted Paulina's eyes in the early grey of the morning might well have struck a stouter heart than hers with dismay; for her house had the look of having been swept by a tornado, and Paulina's heart was anything but stout that morning. The sudden appearance of her husband had at first stricken her with horrible fear, the fear of death; but this fear had passed into a more dreadful horror, that of repudiation.
Seven years ago, when Michael Kalmar had condescended to make her his wife, her whole soul had gone forth to him in a passion of adoring love that had invested him in a halo of glory. He became her god thenceforth to worship and to serve. Her infidelity meant no diminution of this passion. Withdrawn from her husband's influence, left without any sign of his existence for two years or more, subjected to the machinations of the subtle and unscrupulous Rosenblatt, the soul in her had died, the animal had lived and triumphed. The sound of her husband's voice last night had summoned into vivid life her dead soul. Her god had moved into the range of her vision, and immediately she was his again, soul and body. Hence her sudden fury at Rosenblatt; hence, too, the utter self-abandonment in her appeal to her husband. But now he had cast her off. The gates of Heaven, swinging open before her ravished eyes for a few brief moments, had closed to her forever. Small wonder that she brought a heavy heart to the righting of her disordered home, and well for her that Anka with her hearty, cheery courage stood at her side that morning.
Together they set themselves to clear away the filth and the wreckage, human and otherwise. Of the human wreckage Anka made short work. Stepping out into the frosty air, she returned with a pail of snow.
"Here, you sluggards," she cried, bestowing generous handfuls upon their sodden faces, "up with you, and out. The day is fine and dinner will soon be here."
Grunting, growling, cursing, the men rose, stretched themselves with prodigious yawning, and bundled out into the frosty air.
"Get yourselves ready for dinner," cried Anka after them. "The best is yet to come, and then the dance."
Down into the cellar they went, stiff and sore and still growling, dipped their hands and heads into icy water, and after a perfunctory toilet and a mug of beer or two all round, they were ready for a renewal of the festivities. There was no breakfast, but as the day wore on, from the shacks about came women with provisions for the renewal of the feast. For Anka, wise woman, had kept some of the more special dishes for the second day. But as for the beer, though there were still some kegs left, they were few enough to give Jacob Wassyl concern. It would be both a misfortune and a disgrace if the beer should fail before the marriage feast was over. The case was serious enough. Jacob Wassyl's own money was spent, the guests had all contributed their share, Rosenblatt would sooner surrender blood than money, and Jacob was not yet sufficiently established as a husband to appeal to his wife for further help.
It was through Simon Ketzel that deliverance came, or rather through Simon's guest, who, learning that the beer was like to fail, passed Simon a bill, saying, "It would be sad if disgrace should come to your friends. Let there be plenty of beer. Buy what is necessary and keep the rest in payment for my lodging. And of my part in this not a word to any man."
As a result, in the late afternoon a dray load of beer kegs appeared at Paulina's back door, to the unspeakable relief of Jacob and of his guests as well, who had begun to share his anxiety and to look forward to an evening of drouth and gloom.
As for Simon Ketzel, he found himself at once upon the very crest of a wave of popularity, for through the driver of the dray it became known that it was Simon that had come so splendidly to the rescue.
Relieved of anxiety, the revellers gave themselves with fresh and reckless zest to the duty of assuring beyond all shadow of doubt, the good health of the bride and the groom, and of every one in general in flowing mugs of beer. Throughout the afternoon, men and women, and even boys and girls, ate and drank, danced and sang to the limit of their ability.
As the evening darkened, and while this carouse was at its height, Paulina, with a shawl over her head, slipped out of the house and through the crowd, and so on to the outskirts of the colony, where she found her husband impatiently waiting her.
"You are late," he said harshly.
"I could not find Kalman."
"Kalman! My boy! And where would he be?" exclaimed her husband with a shade of anxiety in his voice.
"He was with me in the house. I could not keep him from the men, and they will give him beer."
"Beer to that child?" snarled her husband.
"Yes, they make him sing and dance, and they give him beer. He is wonderful," said Paulina.
Even as she spoke, a boy's voice rose clear and full in a Hungarian love song, to the wild accompaniment of the cymbal.
"Hush!" said the man holding up his hand.
At the first sound of that high, clear voice, the bacchanalian shoutings and roarings fell silent, and the wild weird song, throbbing with passion, rose and fell upon the still evening air. After each verse, the whole chorus of deep, harsh voices swelled high over the wailing violins and Arnud's clanging cymbal.
"Good," muttered the man when the song had ceased. "Now get him."
"I shall bring him to yonder house," said Paulina, pointing to the dwelling of Mrs. Fitzpatrick, whither in a few minutes she was seen half dragging, half carrying a boy of eight, who kept kicking and scratching vigorously, and pouring forth a torrent of English oaths.
"Hush, Kalman," said Paulina in Galician, vainly trying to quiet the child. "The gentleman will be ashamed of you."
"I do not care for any gentleman," screamed Kalman. "He is a black devil," glancing at the black bearded man who stood waiting them at the door of the Fitzpatrick dwelling.
"Hush, hush, you bad boy!" exclaimed Paulina, horrified, laying her hand over the boy's mouth.
The man turned his back upon them, pulled off his black beard, thrust it into his pocket, gave his mustaches a quick turn and faced about upon them. This transformation froze the boy's fury into silence. He shrank back to his mother's side.
"Is it the devil?" he whispered to his mother in Galician.
"Kalman," said the man quietly, in the Russian language, "come to me. I am your father."
The boy gazed at him fearful and perplexed.
"He does not understand," said Paulina in Russian.
"Kalman," repeated his father, using the Galician speech, "come to me. I am your father."
The boy hesitated, looking fixedly at his father. But three years had wiped out the memory of that face.
"Come, you little Cossack," said his father, smiling at him. "Come, have you forgotten all your rides?"
The boy suddenly started, as if waking from sleep. The words evidently set the grey matter moving along old brain tracks. He walked toward his father, took the hand outstretched to him, and kissed it again and again.
"Aha, my son, you remember me," said the father exultantly.
"Yes," said the boy in English, "I remember the ride on the black horse."
The man lifted the boy in his strong arms, kissed him again and again, then setting him down said to Paulina, "Let us go in."
Paulina stepped forward and knocked at the door. Mrs. Fitzpatrick answered the knock and, seeing Paulina, was about to shut the door upon her face, when Paulina put up her hand.
"Look," she cried, pointing to the man, who stood back in the shadow, "Irma fadder."
"What d'ye say?" enquired Mrs. Fitzpatrick.
"Irma fadder," repeated Paulina, pointing to Kalmar.
"Is my daughter Irma in your house?" said he, stepping forward.
"Yer daughter, is it?" said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, looking sharply into the foreigner's face. "An' if she's yer daughter it's yersilf that should be ashamed av it fer the way ye've desarted the lot o' thim."
"Is it permitted that I see my daughter Irma?" said the man quietly.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick scanned his face suspiciously, then called, "Irma darlin', come here an' tell me who this is. Give the babby to Tim there, an' come away."
A girl of between eleven and twelve, tall for her age, with pale face, two thick braids of yellow hair, and wonderful eyes "burnin' brown," as Mrs. Fitzpatrick said, came to the door and looked out upon the man. For some time they gazed steadily each into the other's face.
"Irma, my child," said Kalmar in English, "you know me?"
But the girl stood gazing in perplexity.
"Irma! Child of my soul!" cried the man, in the Russian tongue, "do you not remember your father?" He stepped from the shadow to where the light from the open door could fall upon his face and stood with arms outstretched.
At once the girl's face changed, and with a cry, "It is my fadder!" she threw herself at him.
Her father caught her and held her fast, saying not a word, but covering her face with kisses.
"Come in, come in to the warm," cried the kind-hearted Irish woman, wiping her eyes. "Come in out o' the cold." And with eager hospitality she hurried the father and children into the house.
As they passed in, Paulina turned away. Before Mrs. Fitzpatrick shut the door, Irma caught her arm and whispered in her ear.
"Paulina, is it? Let her shtop—" She paused, looking at the Russian.
"Your pardon?" he enquired with a bow.
"It's Paulina," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, her voice carrying the full measure of her contempt for the unhappy creature who stood half turning away from the door.
"Ah, let her go. It is no difference. She is a sow. Let her go."
"Thin she's not your wife at all?" said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, her wrath rising at this discovery of further deception in Paulina.
He shrugged his shoulders. "She was once. I married her. She is wife no longer. Let her go."
His contemptuous indifference turned Mrs. Fitzpatrick's wrath upon him.
"An' it's yersilf that ought to take shame to yersilf fer the way ye've treated her, an' so ye should!"
The man waved his hand as if to brush aside a matter of quite trifling moment.
"It matters not," he repeated. "She is only a cow."
"Let her come in," whispered Irma, laying her hand again on Mrs. Fitzpatrick's arm.
"Sure she will," cried the Irish woman; "come in here, you poor, spiritless craythur."
Irma sprang down the steps, spoke a few hurried words in Galician. Poor Paulina hesitated, her eyes upon her husband's face. He made a contemptuous motion with his hand as if calling a dog to heel. Immediately, like a dog, the woman crept in and sat far away from the fire in a corner of the room.
"Ye'll pardon me," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick to Kalmar, "fer not axin' ye in at the first; but indade, an' it's more your blame than mine, fer sorra a bit o' thim takes afther ye."
"They do not resemble me, you mean?" said the father. "No, they are the likeness of their mother." As he spoke he pulled out a leather case, opened it and passed it to Mrs. Fitzpatrick.
"Aw, will ye look at that now!" she cried, gazing at the beautiful miniature. "An' the purty face av her. Sure, it's a rale queen she was, an' that's no lie. An' the girl is goin' to be the very spit av her. An' the bye, he's got her blue eyes an' her bright hair. It's aisy seen where they git their looks," she added, glancing at him.
"Mind yer manners, now thin," growled Tim, who was very considerably impressed by the military carriage and the evident "quality" of their guest.
"Yes, the children have the likeness of their mother," said the father in a voice soft and reminiscent. "It is in their behalf I am here to-night, Madam—what shall I have the honour to name you?"
"Me name, is it?" cried Mrs. Fitzpatrick. "Mishtress Timothy Fitzpatrick, Monaghan that was, the Monaghans o' Ballinghalereen, an owld family, poor as Job's turkey, but proud as the divil, an' wance the glory o' Mayo. An' this," she added, indicating her spouse with a jerk of her thumb, "is Timothy Fitzpatrick, me husband, a dacent man in his way. Timothy, where's yer manners? Shtand up an' do yer duty."
Tim struggled to his feet, embarrassed with the burden of Paulina's baby, and pulled his forelock.
"And my name," said the Russian, answering Timothy's salutation with a profound bow, "is Michael Kalmar, with respect to you and Mr. Vichpatrick."
Mrs. Fitzpatrick was evidently impressed.
"An' proud I am to see ye in me house," she said, answering his bow with a curtsey. "Tim, ye owl ye! Why don't ye hand his honour a chair? Did ye niver git the air o' a gintleman before?"
It took some minutes to get the company settled, owing to the reluctance of the Russian to seat himself while the lady was standing, and the equal reluctance of Mrs. Fitzpatrick to take her seat until she had comfortably settled her guest.
"I come to you, Mrs. Vichpatrick, on behalf of my children."
"An' fine childer they are, barrin' the lad is a bit av a limb betimes."
In courteous and carefully studied English, Kalmar told his need. His affairs called him to Europe. He might be gone a year, perhaps more. He needed some one to care for his children. Paulina, though nothing to him now, would be faithful in caring for them, as far as food, clothing and shelter were concerned. She would dismiss her boarders. There had never been need of her taking boarders, but for the fraud of a wicked man. It was at this point that he needed help. Would Mrs. Fitzpatrick permit him to send her money from time to time which should be applied to the support of Paulina and the children. He would also pay her for her trouble.
At this Mrs. Fitzpatrick, who had been listening impatiently for some moments, broke forth upon him.
"Ye can kape yer money," she cried wrathfully. "What sort av a man are ye, at all, at all, that ye sind yer helpless childer to a strange land with a scut like that?"
"Paulina was an honest woman once," he interposed.
"An' what for," she continued wrathfully, "are ye lavin' thim now among a pack o' haythen? Look at that girl now, what'll come to her in that bloody pack o' thieves an' blackguards, d'ye think? Howly Joseph! It's mesilf that kapes wakin' benights to listen fer the screams av her. Why don't ye shtay like a man by yer childer an' tell me that?"
"My affairs—" began the Russian, with a touch of hauteur in his tone.
"An' what affairs have ye needin' ye more than yer childer? Tell me that, will ye?"
And truth to tell, Mrs. Fitzpatrick's indignation blazed forth not only on behalf of the children, but on behalf of the unfortunate Paulina as well, whom, in spite of herself, she pitied.
"What sort av a heart have ye, at all, at all?"
"A heart!" cried the Russian, rising from his chair. "Madam, my heart is for my country. But you would not understand. My country calls me."
"Yer counthry!" repeated Mrs. Fitzpatrick with scorn. "An' what counthry is that?"
"Russia," said the man with dignity, "my native land."
"Rooshia! An' a bloody country it is," answered Mrs. Fitzpatrick with scorn.
"Yes, Russia," he cried, "my bloody country! You are correct. Red with the blood of my countrymen, the blood of my kindred this hundred years and more." His voice was low but vibrant with passion. "You cannot understand. Why should I tell you?"
At this juncture Timothy sprang to his feet.
"Sit ye down, dear man, sit ye down! Shut yer clapper, Nora! Sure it's mesilf that knows a paythriot whin I sees 'im. Tear-an-ages! Give me yer hand, me boy. Sit ye down an' tell us about it. We're all the same kind here. Niver fear for the woman, she's the worst o' the lot. Tell us, dear man. Be the light that shines! it's mesilf that's thirsty to hear."
The Russian gazed at the shining eyes of the little Irishman as if he had gone mad. Then, as if the light had broken upon him, he cried, "Aha, you are of Ireland. You, too, are fighting the tyrant."
"Hooray, me boy!" shouted Tim, "an' it's the thrue word ye've shpoke, an' niver a lie in the skin av it. Oireland foriver! Be the howly St. Patrick an' all the saints, I am wid ye an' agin ivery government that's iver robbed an honest man. Go on, me boy, tell us yer tale."
Timothy was undoubtedly excited. The traditions of a hundred years of fierce rebellion against the oppression of the "bloody tyrant" were beating at his brain and in his heart. The Russian caught fire from him and launched forth upon his tale. For a full hour, now sitting in his chair, now raging up and down the room, now in a voice deep, calm and terrible, now broken and hoarse with sobs, he recounted deeds of blood and fire that made Ireland's struggle and Ireland's wrongs seem nursery rhymes.
Timothy listened to the terrible story in an ecstasy of alternating joy and fury, according to the nature of the episode related. It was like living again the glorious days of the moonlighters and the rackrenters in dear old Ireland. The tale came to an abrupt end.
"An' thin what happened?" cried Timothy.
"Then," said the Russian quietly, "then it was Siberia."
"Siberia! The Hivins be about us!" said Tim in an awed voice. "But ye got away?"
"I am here," he replied simply.
"Be the sowl of Moses, ye are! An' wud ye go back agin?" cried Tim in horror.
"Wud he!" said Nora, with ineffable scorn. "Wud a herrin' swim? By coorse he'll go back. An' what's more, ye can sind the money to me an' I'll see that the childer gets the good av it, if I've to wring the neck av that black haythen, Rosenblatt, like a chicken."
"You will take the money for my children?" enquired the Russian.
"I will that."
He stretched out his hand impulsively. She placed hers in it. He raised it to his lips, bending low as if it had been the lily white hand of the fairest lady in the land, instead of the fat, rough, red hand of an old Irish washer-woman.
"Sure, it's mighty bad taste ye have," said Tim with a sly laugh. "It's not her hand I'd be kissin'."
"Bad luck to ye! Have ye no manners?" said Nora, jerking away her hand in confusion.
"I thank you with all my heart," said Kalmar, gravely bowing with his hand upon his heart. "And will you now and then look over—overlook—oversee—ah yes, oversee this little girl?"
"Listen to me now," cried Mrs. Fitzpatrick. "Can she clear out thim men from her room?" nodding her head toward Paulina.
"There will be no men in her house."
"Can she kape thim out? She's only a wake craythur anyway."
"Paulina," said her husband.
She came forward and, taking his hand, kissed it, Mrs. Fitzpatrick looking on in disgust.
"This woman asks can you keep the men out of your room," he said in Galician.
"I will keep them out," she said simply.
"Aye, but can she?" said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, to whom her answer had been translated.
"I can kill them in the night," said Paulina, in a voice of quiet but concentrated passion.
"The saints in Hivin be above us! I belave her," said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, with a new respect for Paulina. "But fer the love o' Hivin, tell her there is no killin' in this counthry, an' more's the pity when ye see some men that's left to run about."
"She will keep the children safe with her life," said Kalmar. "She had no money before, and she was told I was dead. But it matters not. She is nothing to me. But she will keep my children with her life."
His trust in her, his contempt for her, awakened in Mrs. Fitzpatrick a kind of hostility toward him, and of pity for the wretched woman whom, while he trusted, he so despised.
"Come an' take an air o' the fire, Paulina," she said not unkindly. "It's cold forninst the door."
Paulina, while she understood not the words, caught the meaning of the gesture, but especially of the tone. She drew near, caught the Irish woman's hand in hers and kissed it.
"Hut!" said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, drawing away her hand. "Sit down, will ye?"
The Russian rose to his feet.
"I must now depart. I have still a little work to accomplish. To-morrow I leave the city. Permit me now to bid my children farewell."
He turned to the girl, who held Paulina's baby asleep in her arms. "Irma," he said in Russian, "I am going to leave you."
The girl rose, placed the sleeping baby on the bed, and coming to her father's side, stood looking up into his face, her wonderful brown eyes shining with tears she was too brave to shed.
He drew her to him.
"I am going to leave you," he repeated in Russian. "In one year, if all is well, at most in two, I shall return. You know I cannot stay with you, and you know why." He took the miniature from his pocket and opening it, held it before her face. "Your mother gave her life for her country." For some moments he gazed upon the beautiful face in the miniature. "She was a lady, and feared not death. Ah! ah! such a death!" He struggled fiercely with his emotions. "She was willing to die. Should not I? You do not grudge that I should leave you, that I should die, if need be?" An anxious, almost wistful tone crept into his voice.
Bravely the little girl looked up into the dark face.
"I remember my mother," she said; "I would be like her."
"Aha!" cried her father, catching her to his breast, "I judged you rightly. You are her daughter, and you will live worthy of her. Kalman, come hither. Irma, you will care for your brother. He is young. He is a boy. He will need care. Kalman, heart of my life!"
"He does not understand Russian," said Paulina. "Speak in Galician."
"Ha," cried the man, turning sharply upon her as if he had forgotten her existence. "Kalman, my son," he proceeded in Russian, "did you not understand what I said to your sister?"
"Not well, father," said the boy; "a little."
"Alas, that you should have forgotten your mother's speech!"
"I shall learn it again from Irma," said the boy.
"Good," replied the father in Galician. "Listen then. Never forget you are a Russian. This," putting the miniature before him, "was your mother. She was a lady. For her country she gave up rank, wealth, home and at last life. For her country, too, I go back again. When my work is done I shall return."
Through the window came sounds of revelry from the house near by.
"You are not of these cattle," he said, pointing through the window. "Your mother was a lady. Be worthy of her, boy. Now farewell."
The boy stood without word, without motion, without tear, his light blue eyes fixed upon his father's face, his fair skin white but for a faint spot of red on his cheek.
"Obey your sister, Kalman, and defend her. And listen, boy." His voice deepened into a harsh snarl, his fingers sank into the boy's shoulder, but the boy winced not. "If any man does her wrong, you will kill him. Say it, boy? What will you do?"
"Kill him," said the boy with fierce promptitude, speaking in the English tongue.
"Ha! yes," replied his father in English, "you bear your mother's face, her golden hair, her eyes of blue—they are not so beautiful—but you have your father's spirit. You would soon learn to kill in Russia, but in this land you will not kill unless to defend your sister from wrong."
His mood swiftly changed. He paused, looking sadly at his children; then turning to Mrs. Fitzpatrick he said, "They should go to the public school like Simon Ketzel's little girl. They speak not such good English as she. She is very clever."
"Sure, they must go to school," said she. "An' go they will."
"My gratitude will be with you forever. Good-by."
He shook hands with Timothy, then with Mrs. Fitzpatrick, kissing her hand as well. He motioned his children toward him.
"Heart of my heart," he murmured in a broken voice, straining his daughter to his breast. "God, if God there be, and all the saints, if saints there be, have you in their keeping. Kalman, my son," throwing one arm about him, "Farewell! farewell!" He was fast losing control of himself. The stormy Slavic passions were threatening to burst all restraint. "I give you to each other. But you will remember that it was not for my sake, but for Russia's sake, I leave you. My heart, my heart belongs to you, but my heart's heart is not for me, nor for you, but for Russia, for your mother's land and ours."
By this time tears were streaming down his cheek. Sobs shook his powerful frame. Irma was clinging to him in an abandonment of weeping. Kalman stood holding tight to his father, rigid, tearless, white. At length the father tore away their hands and once more crying "Farewell!" made toward the door.
At this the boy broke forth in a loud cry, "Father! My father! Take me with you! I would not fear! I would not fear to die. Take me to Russia!" The boy ran after his father and clutched him hard.
"Ah, my lad, you are your mother's son and mine. Some day you may go back. Who knows? But—no, no. Canada is your country. Go back." The lad still clutched him. "Boy," said his father, steadying his voice with great effort and speaking quietly, "with us, in our country, we learn first, obedience."
The lad dropped his hold.
"Good!" said the father. "You are my own son. You will yet be a man. And now farewell."
He kissed them again. The boy broke into passionate sobbing. Paulina came forward and, kneeling at the father's feet, put her face to the floor.
"I will care for the son of my lord," she murmured.
But with never a look at her, the father strode to the door and passed out into the night.
"Be the howly prophet!" cried Tim, wiping his eyes, "it's harrd, it's harrd! An' it's the heart av a paythriot the lad carries inside av him! An' may Hivin be about him!"
It was night in Winnipeg, a night of such radiant moonlight as is seen only in northern climates and in winter time. During the early evening a light snow had fallen, not driving fiercely after the Manitoba manner, but gently, and so lay like a fleecy, shimmering mantle over all things.
Under this fleecy mantle, shimmering with myriad gems, lay Winnipeg asleep. Up from five thousand chimneys rose straight into the still frosty air five thousand columns of smoke, in token that, though frost was king outside, the good folk of Winnipeg lay snug and warm in their virtuous beds. Everywhere the white streets lay in silence except for the passing of a belated cab with creaking runners and jingling bells, and of a sleighing party returning from Silver Heights, their four-horse team smoking, their sleigh bells ringing out, carrying with them hoarse laughter and hoarser songs, for the frosty air works mischief with the vocal chords, and leaving behind them silence again.
All through Fort Rouge, lying among its snow-laden trees, across the frost-bound Assiniboine, all through the Hudson's Bay Reserve, there was no sign of life, for it was long past midnight. Even Main Street, that most splendid of all Canadian thoroughfares, lay white and spotless and, for the most part, in silence. Here and there men in furs or in frieze coats with collars turned up high, their eyes peering through frost-rimmed eyelashes and over frost-rimmed coat collars, paced comfortably along if in furs, or walked hurriedly if only in frieze, whither their business or their pleasure led.
Near the northern limits of the city the signs of life were more in evidence. At the Canadian Pacific Railway station an engine, hoary with frozen steam, puffed contentedly as if conscious of sufficient strength for the duty that lay before it, waiting to hook on to Number Two, nine hours late, and whirl it eastward in full contempt of frost and snow bank and blizzard.
Inside the station a railway porter or two drowsed on the benches. Behind the wicket where the telegraph instruments kept up an incessant clicking, the agent and his assistant sat alert, coming forward now and then to answer, with the unwearying courtesy which is part of their equipment and of their training, the oft repeated question from impatient and sleepy travellers, "How is she now?" "An hour," "half an hour," finally "fifteen minutes," then "any time now." At which cheering report the uninitiated brightened up and passed out to listen for the rumble of the approaching train. The more experienced, however, settled down for another half hour's sleep.
It was a wearisome business, and to none more wearisome than to Interpreter Elex Murchuk, part of whose duty it is to be in attendance on the arrival of all incoming trains in case that some pilgrim from Central and Southern Europe might be in need of direction. For Murchuk, a little borderland Russian, boasts the gift of tongues to an extraordinary degree. Russian, in which he was born, and French, and German, and Italian, of course, he knows, but Polish, Ruthenian, and all varieties of Ukranian speech are alike known to him.
"I spik all European language good, jus' same Angleesh," was his testimony in regard to himself.
As the whistle of the approaching train was heard, Sergeant Cameron strolled into the station house, carrying his six feet two and his two hundred pounds of bone and muscle with the light and easy movements of the winner of many a Caledonian Society medal. Cameron, at one time a full private in the 78th Highlanders, is now Sergeant in the Winnipeg City Police, and not ashamed of his job. Big, calm, good-tempered, devoted to his duty, keen for the honour of the force as he had been for the honour of his regiment in other days, Sergeant Cameron was known to all good citizens as an officer to be trusted and to all others as a man to be feared.
Just at present he was finishing up his round of inspection. After the train had pulled in he would go on duty as patrolman, in the place of Officer Donnelly, who was down with pneumonia. The Winnipeg Police Force was woefully inadequate in point of strength, there being no spare men for emergencies, and hence Sergeant Cameron found it necessary to do double duty that night, and he was prepared to do it without grumbling, too. Long watches and weary marches were nothing new to him, and furthermore, to-night there was especial reason why he was not unwilling to take a walk through the north end. Headquarters had been kept fully informed of the progress of a wedding feast of more than ordinary hilarity in the foreign colony. This was the second night, and on second nights the general joyousness of the festivities was more than likely to become unduly exuberant. Indeed, the reports of the early evening had been somewhat disquieting, and hence, Sergeant Cameron was rather pleased than not that Officer Donnelly's beat lay in the direction of the foreign colony.
At length Number Two rolled in, a double header, one engine alive and one dead, but both swathed in snow and frozen steam from cowcatcher to tender, the first puffing its proud triumph over the opposing elements, the second silent, cold and lifeless like a warrior borne from the field of battle.
The passengers, weary and full of the mild excitement of their long struggle with storm and drift across half a continent, emerged from their snow-clad but very comfortable coaches and were eagerly taken in charge by waiting friends and watchful hotel runners.
Sergeant Cameron waited till the crowd had gone, and then turning to Murchuk, he said, "You will be coming along with me, Murchuk. I am going to look after some of your friends."
"My frients?" enquired Murchuk.
"Yes, over at the colony yonder."
"My frients!" repeated Murchuk with some indignation. "Not motch!" Murchuk was proud of his official position as Dominion Government Interpreter. "But I will go wit' you. It is my way."
Away from the noise of the puffing engines and the creaking car wheels, the ears of Sergeant Cameron and his friend were assailed by other and less cheerful sounds.
"Will you listen to that now?" said the Sergeant to his polyglot companion. "What do you think of that for a civilised city? The Indians are not in it with that bunch," continued the Sergeant, who was diligently endeavouring to shed his Highland accent and to take on the colloquialisms of the country.
From a house a block and a half away, a confused clamour rose up into the still night air.
"Oh, dat noting," cheerfully said the little Russian, shrugging his shoulders, "dey mak like dat when dey having a good time."
"They do, eh? And how do you think their neighbours will be liking that sort of thing?"
The Sergeant stood still to analyse this confused clamour. Above the thumping and the singing of the dancers could be heard the sound of breaking boards, mingled with yells and curses.
"Murchuk, there is fighting going on."
"Suppose," agreed the Interpreter, "when Galician man get married, he want much joy. He get much beer, much fight."
"I will just be taking a walk round there," said the Sergeant. "These people have got to learn to get married with less fuss about it. I am not going to stand this much longer. What do they want to fight for anyway?"
"Oh," replied Murchuk lightly, "Polak not like Slovak, Slovak not like Galician. Dey drink plenty beer, tink of someting in Old Country, get mad, make noise, fight some."
"Come along with me," replied the Sergeant, and he squared his big shoulders and set off down the street with the quick, light stride that suggested the springing step of his Highland ancestors on the heather hills of Scotland.
Just as they arrived at the house of feasting, a cry, wild, weird and horrible, pierced through the uproar. The Interpreter stopped as if struck with a bullet.
"My God!" he cried in an undertone, clutching the Sergeant by the arm, "My God! Dat terrible!"
"What is it? What is the matter with you, Murchuk?"
"You know not dat cry? No?" He was all trembling. "Dat cry I hear long ago in Russland. Russian man mak dat cry when he kill. Dat Nihilist cry."
"Go back and get Dr. Wright. He will be needed, sure. You know where he lives, second corner down on Main Street. Get a move on! Quick!"
Meantime, while respectable Winnipeg lay snugly asleep under snow-covered roofs and smoking chimneys, while belated revellers and travellers were making their way through white, silent streets and under avenues of snow-laden trees to homes where reigned love and peace and virtue, in the north end and in the foreign colony the festivities in connection with Anka's wedding were drawing to a close in sordid drunken dance and song and in sanguinary fighting.
In the main room dance and song reeled on in uproarious hilarity. In the basement below, foul and fetid, men stood packed close, drinking while they could. It was for the foreigner an hour of rare opportunity. The beer kegs stood open and there were plenty of tin mugs about. In the dim light of a smoky lantern, the swaying crowd, here singing in maudlin chorus, there fighting savagely to pay off old scores or to avenge new insults, presented a nauseating spectacle.
In the farthest corner of the room, unmoved by all this din, about a table consisting of a plank laid across two beer kegs, one empty, the other for the convenience of the players half full, sat four men deep in a game of cards. Rosenblatt with a big Dalmatian sailor as partner, against a little Polak and a dark-bearded man. This man was apparently very drunk, as was evident by his reckless playing and his jibing, jeering manner. He was losing money, but with perfect good cheer. Not so his partner, the Polak. Every loss made him more savage and quarrelsome. With great difficulty Rosenblatt was able to keep the game going and preserve peace. The singing, swaying, yelling, cursing crowd beside them also gave him concern, and over and again he would shout, "Keep quiet, you fools. The police will be on us, and that will be the end of your beer, for they will put you in prison!"
"Yes," jeered the black-bearded man, who seemed to be set on making a row, "all fools, Russian fools, Polak fools, Galician fools, Slovak fools, all fools together."
Angry voices replied from all sides, and the noise rose higher.
"Keep quiet!" cried Rosenblatt, rising to his feet, "the police will surely be here!"
"That is true," cried the black-bearded man, "keep them quiet or the police will herd them in like sheep, like little sheep, baa, baa, baa, baa!"
"The police!" shouted a voice in reply, "who cares for the police?"
A yell of derisive assent rose in response.
"Be quiet!" besought Rosenblatt again. He was at his wits' end. The police might at any time appear and that would end what was for him a very profitable game, and besides might involve him in serious trouble. "Here you, Joseph!" he cried, addressing a man near him, "another keg of beer!"
Between them they hoisted up a keg of beer on an empty cask, knocked in the head, and set them drinking with renewed eagerness.
"Swine!" he said, seating himself again at the table. "Come, let us play."
But the very devil of strife seemed to be in the black-bearded man. He gibed at the good-natured Dalmatian, setting the Polak at him, suggested crooked dealing, playing recklessly and losing his own and his partner's money. At length the inevitable clash came. As the Dalmatian reached for a trick, the Polak cried out, "Hold! It is mine!"
"Yes, certainly it is his!" shouted the black-bearded man.
"Liar! It is mine," said the Dalmatian, with perfect good temper, and held on to his cards.
"Liar yourself!" hissed the little Polak, thrusting his face toward the Dalmatian.
"Go away," said the Dalmatian. His huge open hand appeared to rest a moment on the Polak's grinning face, and somehow the little man was swept from his seat to the floor.
"Ho, ho," laughed the Dalmatian, "so I brush away a fly."
With a face like a demon's, the Polak sprang at his big antagonist, an open knife in his hand, and jabbed him in the arm. For a moment the big man sat looking at his assailant as if amazed at his audacity. Then as he saw the blood running down his fingers he went mad, seized the Polak by the hair, lifted him clear out of his seat, carrying the plank table with him, and thereupon taking him by the back of the neck, proceeded to shake him till his teeth rattled in his head.
At almost the same instant the black-bearded man leaped across the fallen table like a tiger, at Rosenblatt's throat, and bore him down to the earthen floor in the dark corner. Sitting astride his chest, his knees on Rosenblatt's arms, and gripping him by the throat, he held him voiceless and helpless. Soon his victim lay still, looking up into his assailant's face in surprise, fear and rage unspeakable.
"Rosenblatt," said the bearded man in a soft voice, "you know me—me?"
"No," gasped Rosenblatt in terrible fury, "what do you—"
"Look," said the man. With his free hand he swept off the black beard which he stuffed into his pocket.
Rosenblatt looked. "Kalmar!" he gasped, terror in his eyes.
"Yes, Kalmar," replied the man.
"Help!—" The cry died at his teeth.
"No, no," said Kalmar, shutting his fingers upon his windpipe. "No noise. We are to have a quiet moment here. They are all too busy to notice us. Listen." He leaned far down over the ghastly face of the wretched man beneath him. "Shall I tell you why I am here? Shall I remind you of your crimes? No, I need not. You remember them well, and in a few minutes you will be in hell for them. Five years I froze and burned in Siberia, through you." As he said the word "you" he leaned a little closer. His voice remained low and soft, but his eyes were blazing with a light as of madness. "For this moment," he continued gently, "I have hungered, thirsted, panted. Now it has come. I regret I must hurry a little. I should like to drink this sweet cup slowly, oh so slowly, drop by drop. But—ah, do not struggle, nor cry. It will only add to your pain. Do you see this?" He drew from his pocket what seemed a knife handle, pressed a spring, and from this handle there shot out a blade, long, thin, murderous looking. "It has a sharp point, oh, a very sharp point." He pricked Rosenblatt in the cheek, and as Rosenblatt squirmed, laughed a laugh of singular sweetness. "With this beautiful instrument I mean to pick out your eyes, and then I shall drive it down through your heart, and you will be dead. It will not hurt so very much," he continued in a tone of regret. "No no, not so very much; not so much as when you put out the light of my life, when you murdered my wife; not so much as when you pierced my heart in betraying my cause. See, it will not hurt so very much." He put the sharp blade against Rosenblatt's breast high up above the heart, and drove it slowly down through the soft flesh till he came to bone. Like a mad thing, his unhappy victim threw himself wildly about in a furious struggle. But he was like a babe in the hands that gripped him. Kalmar laughed gleefully. "Aha! Aha! Good! Good! You give me much joy. Alas! it is so short-lived, and I must hurry. Now for your right eye. Or would you prefer the left first?"
As he released the pressure upon Rosenblatt's throat, the wretched man gurgled forth, "Mercy! Mercy! God's name, mercy!"
Piteous abject terror showed in his staring eyes. His voice was to Kalmar like blood to a tiger.
"Mercy!" he hissed, thrusting his face still nearer, his smile now all gone. "Mercy? God's name! Hear him! I, too, cried for mercy for father, brother, wife, but found none. Now though God Himself should plead, you will have only such mercy from me." He seemed to lose hold of himself. His breath came in thick sharp sobs, foam fell from his lips. "Ha," he gasped. "I cannot wait even to pick your eyes. There is some one at the door. I must drink your heart's blood now! Now! A-h-h-h!" His voice rose in a wild cry, weird and terrible. He raised his knife high, but as it fell the Dalmatian, who had been amusing himself battering the Polak about during these moments, suddenly heaved the little man at Kalmar, and knocked him into the corner. The knife fell, buried not in the heart of Rosenblatt, but in the Polak's neck.
There was no time to strike again. There was a loud battering, then a crash as the door was kicked open.
"Hello! What is all this row here?"
It was Sergeant Cameron, pushing his big body through the crowd as a man bursts through a thicket. An awed silence had fallen upon all, arrested, sobered by that weird cry. Some of them knew that cry of old. They had heard it in the Old Land in circumstances of heart-chilling terror, but never in this land till this moment.
"What is all this?" cried the Sergeant again. His glance swept the room and rested upon the huddled heap of men in the furthest corner. He seized the topmost and hauled him roughly from the heap.
"Hello! What's this? Why, God bless my soul! The man is dying!"
From a wound in the neck the blood was still spouting. Quickly the Sergeant was on his knees beside the wounded man, his thumb pressed hard upon the gaping wound. But still the blood continued to bubble up and squirt from under his thumb. All around, the earthen floor was muddy with blood.
"Run, some of you," commanded the Sergeant, "and hurry up that Dr. Wright, Main Street, two corners down!"
Jacob Wassyl, who had come in from the room above, understood, and sent a man off with all speed.
"Good Lord! What a pig sticking!" said the Sergeant. "There is a barrel of blood around here. And here is another man! Here you!" addressing Jacob, "put your thumb here and press so. It is not much good, but we cannot do anything else just now." The Sergeant straightened himself up. Evidently this was no ordinary "scrap." "Let no man leave this room," he cried aloud. "Tell them," he said, addressing Jacob, "you speak English; and two of you, you and you, stand by the door and let no man out except as I give the word."
The two men took their places.
"Now then, let us see what else there is here. Do you know these men?" he enquired of Jacob.
"Dis man," replied Jacob, "I not know. Him Polak man."
The men standing about began to jabber.
"What do they say?"
"Him Polak. Kravicz his name. He no bad man. He fight quick, but not a bad man."
"Well, he won't fight much more, I am thinking," replied the Sergeant.
A second man lay on his back in a pool of blood, insensible. His face showed ghastly beneath its horrible smear of blood and filth.
"Bring me that lantern," commanded the Sergeant.
"My God!" cried Jacob, "it is Rosenblatt!"
"Rosenblatt? Who is he?"
"De man dat live here, dis house. He run store. Lots mon'. My God! He dead!"
"Looks like it," said the Sergeant, opening his coat. "He's got a bad hole in him here," he continued, pointing to a wound in the chest. "Looks deep, and he is bleeding, too."
There was a knocking at the door.
"Let him in," cried the Sergeant, "it is the doctor. Hello, Doctor! Here is something for you all right."
The doctor, a tall, athletic young fellow with a keen, intellectual face, pushed his way through the crowd to the corner and dropped on his knees beside the Polak.
"Why, the man is dead!" said the doctor, putting his hand over the Polak's heart.
Even as he spoke, a shudder passed through the man's frame, and he lay still. The doctor examined the hole in his neck.
"Yes, he's dead, sure enough. The jugular vein is severed."
"Well, here is another, Doctor, who will be dead in a few minutes, if I am not mistaken," said the Sergeant.
"Let me see," said the doctor, turning to Rosenblatt. "Heavens above!" he cried, as his knees sank in the bloody mud, "it's blood!"
He passed round the other side of the unconscious man, got out his syringe and gave him a hypodermic. In a few minutes Rosenblatt showed signs of life. He began to breathe heavily, then to cough and spit mouthfuls of blood.
"Ha, lung, I guess," said the doctor, examining a small clean wound high up in the left breast. "Better send for an ambulance, Sergeant, and hurry them up. The sooner we get him to the hospital, the better. And here is another man. What's wrong with him?"
Beyond Rosenblatt lay a black-bearded man upon his face, breathing heavily. The doctor turned him over.
"He's alive anyway, and," after examination, "I can't find any wound. Heart all right, nothing wrong with him, I guess, except that he's got a bad jag on."
A cursory examination of the crowd revealed wounds in plenty, but nothing serious enough to demand the doctor's attention.
"Now then," said the Sergeant briskly, "I want to get your names and addresses. You can let me have them?" he continued, turning to Jacob.
"Me not know all mens."
"Go on," said the Sergeant curtly.
"Dis man Rosenblatt. Dis man Polak, Kravicz. Not know where he live."
"It would be difficult, I am thinking, for any one to tell where he lives now," said the Sergeant grimly, "and it does not much matter for my purpose."
"Poor chap," said the doctor, "it's too bad."
"What?" said the Sergeant, glancing at him, "well, it is too bad, that is true. But they are a bad lot, these Galicians."
"Poor chap," continued the doctor, looking down upon him, "perhaps he has got a wife and children."
A murmur rose among the men.
"No, he got no wife," said Jacob.
"Thank goodness for that!" said the doctor. "These fellows are a bit rough," he continued, "but they have never had a chance, nor even half a chance. A beastly tyrannical government at home has put the fear of death on them for this world, and an ignorant and superstitious Church has kept them in fear of purgatory and hell fire for the next. They have never had a chance in their own land, and so far, they have got no better chance here, except that they do not live in the fear of Siberia." The doctor had his own views upon the foreign peoples in the West.
"That is all right, Doctor," said the Sergeant, despite the Calvinism of generations beating in his heart, "it is hard on them, but there is nobody compelling them here to drink and fight like a lot of brutes."
"But who is to teach them any better?" said the doctor.
"Come on," said the Sergeant, "who is this?" pointing to the dark-bearded man lying in the corner.
"Dis man," said Jacob, "strange man."
"Any of you know him here?" asked the Sergeant.
There was a murmur of voices.
"What do they say?"
"No one know him. He drink much beer. He very drunk. He play cards wit' Rosenblatt," said Jacob.
"Playing cards, eh? I think we will be finding something now. Who else was in the card game?"
Again a murmur of voices arose.
"Dis Polak man," said Jacob, "and Rosenblatt, and dat man dere, and—"
Half a dozen voices rose in explanation, and half a dozen hands eagerly pointed out the big Dalmatian, who stood back among the crowd pale with terror.
"Come up here, you," said the Sergeant to him.
Instead of responding, with one bound the Dalmatian was at the door, and hurled the two men aside as if they were wooden pegs. But before he could tear open the door, the Sergeant was on him. At once the Dalmatian grappled with him in a fierce struggle. There was a quick angry growl from the crowd. They all felt themselves to be in an awkward position. Once out of the room, it would be difficult for any police officer to associate them in any way with the crime. The odds were forty to one. Why not make a break for liberty? A rush was made for the struggling pair at the door.
"Get back there!" roared the Sergeant, swinging his baton and holding off his man with the other hand.
At the same instant the doctor, springing up from his patient, and taking in the situation, put down his head and bored through the crowd in the manner which at one time had been the admiration and envy of his fellow-students in Manitoba College, till he found himself side by side with the Sergeant.
"Well done!" cried the Sergeant in cheerful approval, "you are the lad! We will just be teaching these chaps a fery good lesson, whateffer," continued the Sergeant, lapsing in his excitement into his native dialect. "Here you," he cried to the big Dalmatian who was struggling and kicking in a frenzy of fear and rage, "will you not keep quiet? Take that then." And he laid no gentle tap with his baton across the head of his captive.
The Dalmatian staggered to the wall and collapsed. There was a flash of steel and a click, and he lay handcuffed and senseless at the Sergeant's side.
"I hate to do that," said the Sergeant apologetically, "but on this occasion it cannot be helped. That was a good one, Doctor," he continued, as the doctor planted his left upon an opposing Galician chin, thereby causing a sudden subsidence of its owner. "These men have not got used to us yet, and we will just have to be patient with them," said the Sergeant, laying about with his baton as opportunity offered, not in any slashing wholesale manner, but making selection, and delivering his blows with the eye and hand of an artist. He was handling the situation gently and with discretion. Still the crowd kept pressing hard upon the two men at the door.
"We must put a stop to this," said the Sergeant seriously. "Here you!" he called to Jacob above the uproar.
Jacob pushed nearer to him.
"Tell these fellows that I am not wanting to hurt any of them, but if they do not get quiet soon, I will attack them and will not spare them, and that if they quit their fighting, none of them will be hurt except the guilty party."
At once Jacob sprang upon a beer keg and waving his arms wildly, he secured a partial silence, and translated for them the Sergeant's words.
"And tell them, too," said the doctor in a high, clear voice, "there is a man dying over there that I have got to attend to right now, and I haven't time for this foolishness."
As he spoke, he once more bored his way through the crowd to the side of Rosenblatt, who was continuing to gasp painfully and spit blood. The moment of danger was past. The excited crowd settled down again into an appearance of stupid anxiety, awaiting they knew not what.