g in for it I ought to understand.
Of course I like anything that's 'agin the Government.' All the Irish
have always been rebels and patriots. We've helped your country too."

Emile did not require a second invitation to induce him to expound his
views. "I suppose you think we throw bombs about by way of a little
distraction?" he asked sarcastically. "What have we suffered before we
took to throwing bombs? Before I came here I saw men and women, old
and young together, shot down in the streets of St. Petersburg.
Because they rioted? No! Because they wished to offer a protest
against the brutalities of the Government officials. Are our petitions
ever read, our entreaties ever answered? There were other things too,
but they didn't generally get into the newspapers. Women stripped in
barrack rooms,--and that in winter,--the Russian winter,--and beaten by
common soldiers. Not women of the streets and slums, but women of the
higher classes. Mock trials held with closed doors, the crime,--to
have incurred the displeasure of someone in favour at the Court,--the
end,--Siberia! A student is known to be quiet, a great reader and
interested in the condition of the serfs. He is watched, arrested, and
on the false evidence of the police ends his days in the mines.
Entreaties, reason, appeal! Have we not tried them? Now we have only
one weapon left--retaliation. Sometimes we are able to avenge our
martyrs. The two fiends who guarded Marie Spiridonova were shot by the
members of her Society. She was only a girl too--about the same age as
you. We Anarchists do not serenade women and make them compliments,
but we think it an honour to kiss the hand of such as Marie
Spiridonova. She was tortured, starved, outraged, and came through
worse than death to be transported to a convict settlement. Now she is
in the Malzoff Prison. She will never see the world again, but it may
be years before the life is ground out of her by labour and privations.
Her case will soon be forgotten, except by a few, and thousands of
other women have gone the same road. The details of the tragedy may be
a little different, the thing itself is the same. One day I shall go
back to my own country. In the meantime I carry on the campaign here.

"It's a losing cause. But if we lose we pay. We don't ask for mercy!"

* * * * * *

They sat together that evening at a _cafe_ on the Rambla, the strolling
place of t