Anton was the first to leave, and he could hardly have reached the street when we were startled by a loud report like the firing of a pistol. We stared at each other in consternation, and Strogov, running into the ante-room, looked through the window and listened at the door, in order to find out what had happened. In a few minutes he came back with satisfactory tidings. Nothing unusual seemed to be stirring in the street; and he attributed the report we had heard to the banging of a door in a neighboring café. So we resumed our conversation and our tea-drinking with quiet minds. But five minutes later we were again disturbed; this time by sounds the character of which there was no mistaking. The trampling of heavy feet in the vestibule, hurried exclamations, words of command, and the rattling of arms, told us only too well with whom we had to do. The police were upon us. Notwithstanding our desire to resist, we knew that we should be compelled to yield without a blow. There was not a weapon amongst us. A few seconds were passed in anxious thought. Then the double-winged doors were thrown violently open, and we saw that the ante-room was occupied by a detachment of soldiers, with bayonets lowered and ready to charge. From the right flank came the words, loud and clear: “Will you surrender, gentlemen? I am the officer in command of the detachment.” I looked round and recognized in the officer with the gendarme uniform and drawn sword, Soudeikin in person, then a subaltern in the Kieff gendarmerie, later the famous chief of the political police of the capital. Despite the imposing military array, the haughty bearing of the officer, the glittering bayonets and stern looks of the soldiers, and the unpleasant sense of having fallen into their toils, the whole affair seemed to me just a little amusing, and I could not help smiling, and saying, in answer to Soudeikin's summons, “Are we then a fortress, Mr. Officer, that you call upon us to surrender?” “No; but your comrades....” the rest of the sentence, owing to the din, I did not catch. “What comrades?” I asked. “You will soon see,” replied Soudeikin. Then he ordered his men to search us, after which we were to be taken to the police office.