Page:Through Bolshevik Russia - Snowden - 1920.djvu/166

 lying about; and in one district, in less than a dozen versts, ten thousand corpses were picked up by the Red Army when it drove back the rebels.

One more story only let me tell. It concerns the sister of one of the People's Commissars and that sister's husband. She lived in a little town in the Volga basin. During the march of Koltchak her home was invaded, and she and her husband, with twenty others, were thrown into prison. After a while, they were taken out into the bitterly cold night and, without trial, shot. The White soldiers bayoneted them to be sure the work was done, and retired.

By the most marvellous accident, the husband was not killed. His hand had been shot away, and the bayonet had entered his side, but he was living. He waited till all was dark and quiet. He bent over his wife, but she was quite dead. Then he crawled softly away, and very weak, reached his home. He found his little daughter of five sleeping, but safe. He dared not stay longer than to have his bleeding hand bound, for they would come at dawn and count the bodies, and his would be missing. So he went to the mayor, and the mayor contrived his escape. And the man is now in Moscow, as one may well imagine, a stern supporter of the Government, and not unready for reprisals.