Page:Hours Spent in Prison.djvu/23

 pigeons were hovering above their heads, the hens entangled underfoot.

Attracted by this running stream of people, I began to run along with them.

“They beat on the Ekaterininskaya Street!” somebody cried.

In the front of the crowd some driver urged on his horse with the reins, sending him forward at full gallop in the unpaved street, and shouting loudly:

“They are murdering us.”

I turned into a narrow, silent street, and there I halted. It was so filled and barricaded with different kinds of rubbish that its appearance reminded me of a torn bag of corn. From the distance continually came howlings and terrible noises which pierced to the marrow of one’s bones; window-panes were being broken, then came heavy thuds like those of falling bodies, and a dreadful cracking sound of breaking things. These sounds