Page:Balkan Short Stories.djvu/75

Rh In the lonely night, in the darkness, a man, two women and two children were snatched from sleep and murdered. The shrieks of the children which brutal blows silence, when they slit their bellies open—and then the last one to die, who had to sit in a corner and watch all that happened—until his own turn came. It was worse than an execution, and there is no hope for a Jew when he falls into the hands of the Christians.

The feverish lips of Leiba follow all these thoughts mechanically. Shivers run down his back; with trembling step he walks along the passageway in the rest-house.

“Without doubt,” thinks Sura—“Leiba is bad. He's ill. He has queer thoughts in his head.”

How else could she explain the peculiarities of the past few days?

He closed the rest-house and lighted the candles just as Shabbes was drawing to a close. Three times guests knocked on the doors and friendly voices asked admittance. At every knock he jumped up and kept his wife from opening the door, while he whispered, his eyes rolling with terror: “Don't move—I won't let a Christian in tonight.”