“Do you know how the Winter Palace was captured?” asked a third man, a sailor. “Along about eleven o’clock we found out there weren’t any more _yunkers_ on the Neva side. So we broke in the doors and filtered up the different stairways one by one, or in little bunches. When we got to the top of the stairs the _yunkers_ held us up and took away our guns. Still our fellows kept coming up, little by little, until we had a majority. Then we turned around and took away the _yunkers’_ guns….” Just then the commandant entered—a merry-looking young non-commissioned officer with his arm in a sling, and deep circles of sleeplessness under his eyes. His eye fell first on the prisoner, who at once began to explain. “Oh, yes,” interrupted the other. “You were one of the committee who refused to surrender the Staff Wednesday afternoon. However, we don’t want you, citizen. Apologies—” He opened the door and waved his arm for Count Tolstoy to leave. Several of the others, especially the Red Guards, grumbled protests, and the sailor remarked triumphantly, _“Vot!_ There! Didn’t I say so?” Two soldiers now engaged his attention. They had been elected a committee of the fortress garrison to protest. The prisoners, they said, were getting the same food as the guards, when there wasn’t even enough to keep a man from being hungry. “Why should the counter-revolutionists be treated so well?” “We are revolutionists, comrades, not bandits,” answered the commandant. He turned to us. We explained that rumours were going about that the _yunkers_ were being tortured, and the lives of the Ministers threatened. Could we perhaps see the prisoners, so as to be able to prove to the world—?” “No,” said the young soldier, irritably. “I am not going to disturb the prisoners again. I have just been compelled to wake them up—they were sure we were going to massacre them…. Most of the _yunkers_ have been released anyway, and the rest will go out to-morrow.” He turned abruptly away. “Could we talk to the Duma commission, then?” The Commandant, who was pouring himself a glass of tea, nodded. “They are still out in the hall,” he said carelessly. Indeed they stood there just outside the door, in the feeble light of an oil lamp, grouped around the Mayor and talking excitedly. “Mr. Mayor,” I said, “we are American correspondents. Will you please tell us officially the result of your investigations?” He turned to us his face of venerable dignity. “There is no truth in the reports,” he said slowly. “Except for the incidents which occurred as the Ministers were being brought here, they have been treated with every consideration. As for the _yunkers,_ not one has received the slightest injury….”