ts of
the mob. The Prince spurred alongside a watching police-officer.

"A lady!" repeated the officer, in amazement. "I have seen no lady,
your Excellency. But the principal--er--disorder is in the street
behind the church. The Jews are making no resistance at all."

The Prince pushed on, and came with his dragoons at the rear of the
mob. With a fine Russian callousness he thrust into it, his horses
clearing a way for themselves and bowling men to right and left. The
street was in darkness and resounded with violence. Standing in his
stirrups and peering ahead, the Prince realized that he might ride
Truda down without ever seeing her.

He leaned back and caught his aide-de-camp by the arm.

"We must have light," he shouted. "Dismount a dozen men and fire a
house."

At the order, men swung from their saddles, and in a few minutes the
house was ablaze; its windows, red with fire, cast a dancing glow on
the tumult of the street. They pressed on, the fire sparkling on
their accoutrements, and on the housetops cowering Jews broke into
tremblings at a wild hope that here was salvation. The Prince peered
anxiously about, unconcerned at all the savagery that was unloosened
to each side of him. He did not pause to aid a woman dragged
shrieking from a doorway by the hair, nor look back at that other
scream when a dragoon, unmanned and overwrought, reined from the
ranks and cut her assailant down.

At one point the crowd was thick about the gate of a walled
courtyard, thundering on it with crowbars and axes; here, again, the
Prince paused to look sharply among them, lest somewhere there might
be a brown head and a pale clear-cut face that he sought. Even as he
tightened his bridle, the gate gave rendingly; he turned his head as
the mob, roaring, poured in. For the space of perhaps a second he sat
motionless and stricken, but it was long enough to see what he never
forgot--a woman, composed, serene, bright against her dark background
in the shifting light of the burning house, gay in saffron and white.
Then the mob surged before her and hid her, and his voice returned to
him.

"Charge!" he roared, and tore his sword out.

The dragoons, eager enough, followed him; the courtyard overflowed
with them as their great horses thundered in at the gate, and the
long swords got to their work on that packed and cornered throng.
There were swift bitter passages as the troopers cleared the place--
episodes such as only Jews knew til