Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/256

204 the Russian mujik to the Little Father. That pleasant myth could not survive the spectacle of these two devout, benign old peasants, plunging their bayonets into dark corners, and drawing them out again, aggrieved that on them were no fatal signs of the Little Father.

Andrey Petrovich was a man of resources. Having no Czar for his men, he used Kuntz and me as substitutes. "It is a strange world, tovarishe, full of strange surprises," he said, addressing his comrades. "We came down here to get the greatest criminal in history. Not a man here but has known pain or misery thru the Czar. But instead of finding our worst enemy, we find here our best friends. This train, instead of carrying the ideas of our autocracy, is carrying the ideas of our Revolution—and carrying them to America. Long live the Revolution! Long live our American comrades!"

There was a riot of cheer-giving, hand-shaking and picture-taking and we were off again. But not for long. Again we were halted by a storming mass. And again and again. It was in vain to protest that the Czar was not aboard. Even the documents attesting this, they waved aside as counter-revolutionary forgeries. Each crowd must reassure itself thru its own search. Thus the fastest express upon the Trans-Siberian, became the slowest.