In its steady
fire a heavy clod seemed to burn and melt--the sufferings they had
endured, the dark load of their habitual feelings, their cursed
dread of what was coming.
"They all join in!" somebody roared exultantly. "Well done, boys!"
Apparently the man felt something vast, to which he could not give
expression in ordinary words, so he uttered a stiff oath. Yet the
malice, the blind dark malice of a slave also streamed hotly through
his teeth. Disturbed by the light shed upon it, it hissed like a
snake, writhing in venomous words.
"Heretics!" a man with a broken voice shouted from a window, shaking
his fist threateningly.
A piercing scream importunately bored into the mother's ears--
"Rioting against the emperor, against his Majesty the Czar? No, no?"
Agitated people flashed quickly past her, a dark lava stream of men
and women, carried along by this song, which cleared every obstacle
out of its path.
Growing in the mother's breast was the mighty desire to shout to the
crowd:
"Oh, my dear people!"
There, far away from her, was the red banner--she saw her son without
seeing him--his bronzed forehead, his eyes burning with the bright
fire of faith.
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