Suddenly he lifted her from her feet and tried to drag her by sheer force to the door leading to the room beyond. She saw his intention, and for several minutes fought fiercely with a renewed strength of which she had not believed herself capable. Presently, in the heat of the struggle, something heavy fell from his pocket. She stooped and snatched it up. At that moment she felt her strength failing, and exerted every muscle. “Will you let me go?” she shrieked, her lips cut and swollen by the cruel blow he had dealt her. “No, I will not,” he replied, with an imprecation. As he uttered the words something bright glittered in her hand. He grasped her arm, endeavouring to gain possession of it, but was too late. There was a flash, a loud report, and General Martianoff staggered back against the wall with an agonised cry. “You—you’ve shot me!” he gasped hoarsely, and then sank upon a chair, inert and helpless, with blood streaming from a wound in his shoulder. Mascha, in desperation, had resorted to the last extremity in defence of her honour. That night was an eventful one in Mstislavl. The ignorant moujiks, encouraged by the officials of the Government, had heaped every indignity possible upon the Jews, and the anti-Semitic feeling reached a climax when it became known that a Jewess had attempted to assassinate the Governor. Led by a wild-haired local agitator, a mob of a thousand persons proceeded to the Ghetto and carried out a frightful work of destruction. They surged down the narrow street, and after entering the houses and treating the inmates with shocking brutality, looted and set fire to their homes. The enraged rioters wrecked the Synagogue and killed the Rabbi, shouting, “Clear out the rats’ nest! Kill them all!” Screams of pain mingled with wild yells of triumph, and through the long night the Ghetto was a veritable Pandemonium. The scene was terrible. The street ran with blood. Many Jewish women fell victims to the brutal lust and frantic frenzy of the mob, and were so barbarously maltreated that eleven succumbed, while a dozen men were shot or stabbed. Before dawn the Ghetto had been totally destroyed and its unfortunate inhabitants, having lost everything they had, were compelled to seek shelter in the forest on the Kritchev road, where many afterwards died of exposure and starvation. General Martianoff lost no time in wreaking vengeance upon my hapless sister. She had been arrested and taken to prison immediately after firing the shot, and he had condemned her to receive fifty lashes of the knout. Such a sentence was tantamount to death, for punishment by the knout is so barbarous a torture that few strong men could survive so many strokes. Yet whippings were of everyday occurrence in the Tzar’s empire, and even women are not spared by the officials.