Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/304

248 Before them, wrought out in flower-beds edged with stone, is the design which spells. Vaulting the iron fence, they kick away the stones, stamp thru the flowers, plunging their hands deep into the soil in order to extirpate the last root and vestige of the odious symbol.

Their blood is up now. Their appetites are whetted. They want something animate to vent their rage upon.

Spying me in the throng, they raise a great hue and cry: "Immigrant! Swine!" (Amerikanskaya Svoloch) they yell. "Kill him! Choke him! Hang him!" The mob of speculators converges on me, brandishing fists and cursing.

But the ring of men forming next to me makes no attempt to lay hands on me. Why, I wonder? They are partisans of the Soviet. Seeing my peril, they have wormed their way in between me and these would-be lynchers, forming a kind of protective pocket.

A low voice whispers, "Head for the Red Fleet Building. Walk, don't run." Pushed and jostled by the crowd behind, I steer my course toward the Red Fleet Building. Opposite its portal I hear the word "Run!" I slip thru the door, and escape in its labyrinths, leaving my pursuers disputing with the Czechs below.