pray! Strew ashes on your heads, and fall down on your knees and pray
to God for mercy, for the enemy is before your gates, and ere the sun
sets the Russians will enter your town! I say unto you, verily I
say unto you, God spoke to me in a voice of thunder, and said,
'The Russians are coming!' Fall down and pray, for the Russians are
coming!"

"The Russians are coming!" cried the terrified multitude and some
among them turned pale. The weeping women folded their hands in
prayer; the men looked around timidly, and the frightened children
clung to their mothers in dread of the Russians, whose name was
synonymous with that of savages and cannibals. Even Kretschmer could
not help feeling somewhat terrified. He drew back thoughtfully from
the window, muttering with a shudder, "The Russians are coming!"

The people crowded around the prophet in still narrower circles, and
in more piercing tones wept and cried out: "What shall we do? What
shall we do to be saved? Have mercy, O God! Have mercy on Berlin, for
the Russians are coming!"

"Yes, they are coming!" cried Pfannenstiel. "God told me so in the
roll of His thunder and the lightning of His eyes; and he said to me:
'Go and say to the people of Berlin, "The Russians are coming!" and
thou shalt see in the same hour how their hearts will shrink, and how
cast down they will be; how their eyes will run tears, and their
lips utter prayers, for the Russian is the sworn enemy of the Berlin
people; and as often as the cry, "The Russians are coming," sounds
through the streets of Berlin, there will be wailing and lamentation
in every house and every heart; and they will bow down in timid
contrition and abject obedience. Speak, therefore, to them, and say,