The majority of these children, unable to endure the tortures inflicted
on them, saved themselves by baptism. But many cantonists, particularly
those of a maturer age (between fifteen and eighteen), bore their
martyrdom with heroic patience. Beaten almost into senselessness, their
bodies striped by lashes, tormented to the point of exhaustion by
hunger, thirst, and sleeplessness, the lads declared again and again
that they would not betray the faith of their fathers. Most of these
obstinate youths were carried from the barracks into the military
hospitals to be released by a kind death. Only a few remained alive.

Alongside of this passive heroism there were cases of demonstrative
martyrdom. One such incident has survived in the popular memory. The
story goes that during a military parade [1] in the city of Kazan the
battalion chief drew up all the Jewish cantonists on the banks of the
river, where the Greek-Orthodox priests were standing in their
vestments, and all was ready for the baptismal ceremony. At the command
to jump into the water, the boys answered in military fashion "Aye,
aye!" Whereupon they dived under and disappeared. When they were dragged
out, they were dead. In most cases, however, these little martyrs
suffered and died noiselessly, in the gloom of the guard-houses,
barracks, and military hospitals. They strewed with their tiny bodies
the roads that led into the outlying regions of the Empire, and those
that managed to get there were fading away slowly in the barracks which
had been turned into inquisitorial dungeons. This martyrdom of children,
set in a military environment, represents a singular phenomenon even in
the extensive annals of Jewish martyrology.

[Footnote 1: A variant of the legend speaks of a review by the Tzar
himself.]