42 BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.
then it means death, but this is not a mercy always obtainable.
Anna met the minions of the Council dragging her lover to the prison of the District Court, for Losinski was more dead than alive. He was no coward, but he knew what the knout meant. His very blood had frozen at the sen- tence. For the moment he even forgot Anna, only think- ing of the horror of his situation. He had seen the administration of the knout more than once in St. Peters- burg ; he had seen the half-naked victims strapped upon the machine so tightly that it seemed impossible that the body could move so much as a hair's breadth, and yet with the skin as tight as racking screws could make it, to the very dislocation of the bones, the wretch would bound under the very first blow. Losinski seemed to see himself undergoing the torture, and he had fought his captors with the vigor of a wild despair. When Anna came upon the grim procession he had simply collapsed ; they were dragging along a man half-dead with fright and wholly insensible.
p Uh It had been some little time before the rabbi's people
the 0-d made Anna understand why at parting Losinski had
Pal ac 0olemnly commended her to God. When she realized Losin. had happened, when she knew that he was a pri-
to the very sne rushed out with no other intention at the " Mercyt than to find him.
the eviden calm," said an old man, standing in her way,^ be He por
the poo-vVho are you ? " she asked. " W A friend," said the stranger.
cruel ,<" I have never seen you before."
remor" Yes, you have. Let me whisper a word to you?* " I She bent her head.
said \v" Thank God," she exclaimed, in answer. to the whis- " It f. d word.
