Page:The way of Martha and the way of Mary (1915).djvu/85

Rh in the tavern. Sasha was taken for a soldier and disappeared from ken. For a year and a half no word was heard from him or of him. He was given up for dead, and the tavern lost its old attraction. At last, however, one night in came Sasha, the same as ever, unhurt, untouched. He had been captured by the Japanese and held a year as a prisoner at Nagasaki. He had learned Japanese music. Not that anybody wanted it.

"Play us the old tunes, Sasha; play Maroosia, play To Odessa we sailed on the sea." Sasha played that night all the old tunes.

The tavern became as of old.

But there was storm in the air. Every one was talking of revolution. Sasha began to play the Marseillaise again, and now with a different note from that in which he had played when friendship with France was being honoured. In came the police and stopped him. They forbade the playing of any Anthems whatsoever.

There was a pogrom in the town; hired ruffians appeared in the streets inciting the population to the murder of the Jews. Not once or twice Sasha himself was taken for a Jew and attacked.

Into the tavern came the same ruffians, and tried to stir up the drunkards to pillage and violence. Sasha was playing a tune of his own fancy when suddenly one of them, a converted Jew, jumped up and cried:

"The National Anthem! Brothers, the National