In dead silence the four of us, Loris and Stepán, Mishka and I, carried the coffin down, wrapped in an old curtain of rich brocade, and stood by with bowed heads, while, still in silence, it was lowered down, pall and all.
As we turned away, I saw a face at one of the windows and knew Anne had watched us at our task. Her self-control, her powers of endurance, were marvellous. I do not believe she had slept all that day, and yet when the carriage was ready she came out with a steady step; and I heard her speak soothingly to the weeping Natalya.
That was the last I saw or heard of her for several days, for it had been arranged that she should drive to Pruschan, escorted only by Loris and her cousin and a couple of our men, and travel thence by train to Warsaw, while Mishka and I with the others would ride the whole way. It meant a couple of days' delay in reaching Warsaw, but it seemed the safest plan; and it worked without a hitch. By twos and threes we rode into Warsaw in the early morning of the day that saw the beginning of the great strike,--and of the revolution which will end only when the Russian Empire becomes a Free Republic; and God only knows when that will come to pass!
I have been through three regular campaigns in different parts of the world during the last ten years, and had a good many thrilling experiences, one way and another; but the weeks I spent in Warsaw in the late fall of the year 1905 were the strangest and most eventful I've ever gone through.
As I look back now, the whole thing seems like a long and vivid nightmare, of which some few incidents stand out with dreadful distinctness, and the rest is a mere blur, a confusion of shifting figures and scenes; of noise and dust and bloodshed. Strenuous days of street rioting and fighting, in which one and all of us did our share; and when the row was over for the time being, turned our hands to ambulance work. Nights that were even more strenuous than the days, for in the night the next day's plan had to be decided on, funds and food given out, the circulars (reporting progress and urging the people to stand fast) to be drawn up, printed, and issued. Such publications were prohibited, of course; but Warsaw, like most of the other cities, was strewn with them. People read them, flaunting them openly before the eyes of the authorities; and though the police and the soldiers tried the plan of bayoneting or shooting at sight every one whom they saw with a revolutionary print, they soon had to reserve it for any defenceless woman or even child whom they might encounter. For the great majority of the strikers were armed, and they showed themselves even quicker with their revolvers and "killers" than the soldiers were with their rifles; while every soldier killed represented one more rifle seized.