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62 BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.

troops came marching out from the barracks. The Jews retreated to their homes, and the populace, influenced by the agents who had arrived at Czarovna the night before from the east with the false ukase, began to rise against their Semitic neighbors.

CHAPTER XL

PANDEMONIUM.

BEATEN back and retreating, the Jews left their forlorn sister as needs must to the mercy of the Governor. Un- satiated with the blood of Losinski, in a passion of brutal rage he condemned Anna to the lash, and to instant punishment.

In the midst of the red excitement of the moment, men's passions alive with fear, terror and vengeance, with the sound of musketry following the retiring Jews, and with the murmur of a gang of prisoners whom the hussars were dragging towards the Governor, Petronovitch's inhuman order was given, and Anna was stripped to receive fifty strokes of the knout.

There were Russian women on the scene, the wives of some of the officials ; they are supposed to attend such terrible functions as the knout on special occasions, for the purpose of assisting to emphasize a public deter- rent example offered on such occasions for the benefit of the people. They had borne the sight of the rabbi's death with the nerve of official dignity. But a palpable mur- mur of horror and protest was heard among them as they realized what was about to happen to Anna. The Count Stravensky, venturing on the spur of the moment to make an appeal to the Governor on behalf of the woman, received a prompt and significant snub : " Are we to maintain the authority of the Government or not? Is