Tired as I was, I lost no time. With a glance to see that my own revolver was loaded, I threw aside my overcoat, and, leaving the inn, walked across the bridge into a poor narrow street of wretched-looking houses, many of them built of wood. A man limped slowly past me, wounded in the leg, and leaving blood-spots behind him as he went. An old woman was seated in a doorway, her face buried in her hands, wailing: "My poor son!--dead!--dead!" Before me I saw a great barricade composed of trees, household furniture, paving-stones, overturned carts, pieces of barbed wire--in fact, everything and anything the populace could seize upon for the construction of hasty defence. Upon the top, silhouetted against the clear frosty sky, was the scarlet flag of the revolution--the Red Rooster was crowing! Excited men were there, armed with rifles, shouting and giving orders. Then I saw that a small space had been left open against the wall of a house so that persons might pass and repass. As I approached a wild-haired man shouted to me and beckoned frantically. I grasped his meaning. He wished me to come within. I ran forward, entered the town proper, and a few moments later the opening was closed by a dozen slabs of stone being heaped up into it by as many willing hands. Thus I found myself in the very centre of the revolution, behind the barricades, of which there were, it seemed, six or seven. From the rear there was constant firing, and the streets in the vicinity were, I saw to my horror, already filled with dead and wounded. Women were wailing over husbands, lovers, brothers; men over their daughters and wives. Even children of tender age were lying helpless and wounded, some of them shattered and dead. Ah! that sight was sickening. Never had I seen wholesale butchery such as that in which I was now in the midst. I was looking about to find the German _agent provocateur_, but I failed to find him. Perhaps, having bidden the people to rise, he had himself escaped. Most probably. Above us bullets whistled as the Cossacks came suddenly round a side street and made a desperate attack upon the barricade I had entered only a few minutes before. A dozen of those fighting for their freedom fell back dead at my feet at the first volley. They had been on top of the barricade, offering a mark to the troops of the Czar. Before us and behind us there was firing, for at the rear of us was another barricade. We were, in fact, between two deadly fires. Revolver in hand, I stood ready to defend my own life. In those exciting moments I disregarded the danger I ran from being struck in that veritable hail of lead. Men fell wounded all around me, and there was blood everywhere. A thin, dark-headed young fellow under thirty--a Moscow student, I subsequently heard--seemed to be the ringleader, for above the firing could be heard his shouts of encouragement.