At half-past eleven three field-pieces arrived. Another demand to surrender was met by the _yunkers_ shooting down two of the Soviet delegates under the white flag. Now began a real bombardment. Great holes were torn in the walls of the school. The _yunkers_ defended themselves desperately; shouting waves of Red Guards, assaulting, crumpled under the withering blast…. Kerensky telephoned from Tsarskoye to refuse all parley with the Military Revolutionary Committee. Frenzied by defeat and their heaps of dead, the Soviet troops opened a tornado of steel and flame against the battered building. Their own officers could not stop the terrible bombardment. A Commissar from Smolny named Kirilov tried to halt it; he was threatened with lynching. The Red Guards’ blood was up. At half-past two the _yunkers_ hoisted a white flag; they would surrender if they were guaranteed protection. This was promised. With a rush and a shout thousands of soldiers and Red Guards poured through windows, doors and holes in the wall. Before it could be stopped five _yunkers_ were beaten and stabbed to death. The rest, about two hundred, were taken to Peter-Paul under escort, in small groups so as to avoid notice. On the way a mob set upon one party, killing eight more _yunkers_…. More than a hundred Red Guards and soldiers had fallen…. Two hours later the Duma got a telephone message that the victors were marching toward the _Injinierny Zamok_—the Engineers’ school. A dozen members immediately set out to distribute among them armfuls of the latest proclamation of the Committee for Salvation. Several did not come back…. All the other schools surrendered without resistance, and the _yunkers_ were sent unharmed to Peter-Paul and Cronstadt…. The Telephone Exchange held out until afternoon, when a Bolshevik armoured car appeared, and the sailors stormed the place. Shrieking, the frightened telephone girls ran to and fro; the _yunkers_ tore from their uniforms all distinguishing marks, and one offered Williams _anything_ for the loan of his overcoat, as a disguise…. “They will massacre us! They will massacre us!” they cried, for many of them had given their word at the Winter Palace not to take up arms against the People. Williams offered to mediate if Antonov were released. This was immediately done; Antonov and Williams made speeches to the victorious sailors, inflamed by their many dead—and once more the _yunkers_ went free…. All but a few, who in their panic tried to flee over the roofs, or to hide in the attic, and were found and hurled into the street.