must keep their memory clean. We thank you, but we dare not lay your wreaths upon their coffins."
The procession poured down the Aleutskaya Hill, filled the large open space at the bottom, and faced up toward the British Consulate. Nearby, on the left, was a work car with a tower for repairing electric wires. Whether it was there by design or accident I do not know. Presently it was to serve as a speaker's rostrum.
The band played a solemn dirge. The men bared their heads. The women bowed. The music ceased and there was a silence. The band played a second time. Again there was the bowing and baring of heads and again the long silence. And yet there was no speaker. It was like a huge Quaker meeting in the open air. And just as a sermon has no place in Russian public worship, so here a speech was not essential to this act of public devotion. But should some one from the people feel the impulse to speak there was the platform awaiting him. It was as if in the pause the people were generating a voice.
At last out of the crowd one came and climbed upon the high platform. He had not the gift of oratory but his frequent iteration, "They died for us. They died for us," touched others to utterance.
First came a peasant, bronzed and bearded and in peasant costume. He said: "All my life has been one of toil and fear. . . . Pain and torture and killing without end we had in the dark days of the Czar. Then the morning of the Revolution came and
