MICH. I think little of pen and ink in revolutions. One dagger will do more than a hundred epigrams. Still, let us read this scholar's last production. Give it to me. I will read it myself. PROF. Brother, you never mind your stops; let Alexis read it. MICH. Ay! he is as tripping of speech as if he were some young aristocrat; but for my own part I care not for the stops so that the sense be plain. ALEX. (_reading_). "The past has belonged to the tyrant, and he has defiled it; ours is the future, and we shall make it holy." Ay! let us make the future holy; let there be one revolution at least which is not bred in crime, nurtured in murder! MICH. They have spoken to us by the sword, and by the sword we shall answer! You are too delicate for us, Alexis. There should be none here but men whose hands are rough with labour or red with blood. PRES. Peace, Michael, peace! He is the bravest heart among us. MICH. (_aside_). He will need to be brave to-night. (_The sound of sleigh bells is heard outside._) VOICE (_outside_). Per crucem ad lucem. _Answer of man on guard._ Per sanguinem ad libertatem. MICH. Who is that? VERA. God save the people! PRES. Welcome, Vera, welcome! [6]We have been sick at heart till we saw you; but now methinks the star of freedom has come to wake us from the night.[6] VERA. [7]It is night, indeed, brother! Night without moon or star![7] Russia is smitten to the heart! The man Ivan whom men call the Czar strikes now at our mother with a dagger deadlier than ever forged by tyranny against a people's life! MICH. What has the tyrant[8] done now? VERA. To-morrow martial law is to be proclaimed in Russia. OMNES. Martial law! We are lost! We are lost! ALEX. Martial law! Impossible! MICH. Fool, nothing is impossible in Russia but reform. VERA. Ay, martial law. The last right to which the people clung has been taken from them. Without trial, without appeal, without accuser even, our brothers will be taken from their houses, shot in the streets like dogs, sent away to die in the snow, to starve in the dungeon, to rot in the mine. Do you know what martial law means? It means the strangling of a whole nation. [9]The streets will be filled with soldiers night and day; there will be sentinels at every door.[9] No man dare walk abroad now but the spy or the traitor. Cooped up in the dens we hide in, meeting by stealth, speaking with bated breath; what good can we do now for Russia? PRES. We can suffer at least. VERA. We have done that too much already. The hour is now come to annihilate and to revenge. PRES. Up to this the people have borne everything. VERA. Because they have understood nothing. But now we, the Nihilists, have given them the tree of knowledge to eat of and the day of silent suffering is over for Russia. MICH. Martial law, Vera! This is fearful tidings you bring. PRES. It is the death warrant of liberty in Russia. VERA. Or the tocsin of[10] revolution. MICH. Are you sure it is true?