on the soldiers. One or two soldiers fell; and I saw the officers
going up and down the ranks urging the men to fire again; but they
received the orders in sullen silence, and let the butts of their
guns fall. Only one sergeant ran to a machine-gun and began to set
it going; but a tall young man, an officer too, ran out of the ranks
and dragged him back by the collar; and the soldiers stood there
motionless while the horror-stricken crowd, nearly wholly unarmed
(for most of the armed men had fallen in that first discharge),
drifted out of the Square. I was told afterwards that the soldiers
on the west side had fired also, and done their part of the
slaughter. How I got out of the Square I scarcely know: I went, not
feeling the ground under me, what with rage and terror and despair.'

"So says our eye-witness. The number of the slain on the side of the
people in that shooting during a minute was prodigious; but it was
not easy to come at the truth about it; it was probably between one
and two thousand. Of the soldiers, six were killed outright, and a
dozen wounded."

I listened, trembling with excitement. The old man's eyes glittered
and his face flushed as he spoke, and told the tale of what I had
often thought might happen. Yet I wondered that he should have got
so elated about a mere massacre, and I said:

"How fearful! And I suppose that this massacre put an end to the
whole revolution for that time?"

"No, no," cried old Hammond; "it began it!"

He filled his glass and mine, and stood up and cried out, "Drink this