Page:By order of the Czar.djvu/366

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354


BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.


tented with my father, who was the principal Jew merchant of Czarovna. There came to our village one Losinski, a young learned scholar, who was appointed Rabbi. I fell in love with him, he with me. We were betrothed. It was the eve of the solemnization of our marriage. But at the height of Czarovna's happiness there came a new governor, General Petronovitch, and with him the wicked risings against the Jews with sword and fire, which you all remem- ber, less than ten years ago. This governor from St. Peters- burg was a sensualist, a tyrant and an assassin. He found villainous excuse to attack our house, to confiscate my father's estate, to send him to that living death, Siberia; to seize upon the young and learned rabbi, my lover, to con- demn him to the knout. Maddened with my despair, I sought the governor at his palace, a suppliant for mercy. By fair promises he induced me for a moment to trust him. The crime he committed against me was one worse than death."

Philip Forsyth felt his heart stand still. He clutched his chair and pressed his feet upon the floor to prevent himself from falling. One of the unnamed, noticing his trouble, clutched him by the arm and pressed wine upon him as Anna continued her narrative.

" The next day I witnessed the execution of Losinski, and raising my voice in revolt and defiance, excited my people of the ghetto into revolt. In the midst of their attack upon the fiendish despot, I was dragged to the scaf- fold myself, and there beaten out of all sensibility, to wake up finally in the hospital, a miserable wreck, with sufficient life still left to swear eternal vengeance upon General Petronovitch, the only effort of existence left to me, the one red spark of hope in my earthly dungeon. Surely it was that one hope that gave me life. My wounds dressed with salt I spare you even a single word about the physi- cal agony I suffered I began to recover, and it was thought