Page:Through Bolshevik Russia - Snowden - 1920.djvu/45

 some of the graves, when we stopped in our walk and sang slowly a verse of the plaintive martyrs' hymn, a sad and haunting melody with just a single note of triumph in it. One after another the heroes were pointed out to us. Here was a man who had been tortured to death. Here was one who was shot by hired Government assassins. Here lay one who was blown to bits by his own bomb; here a tender girl who gave up her life for the cause.

The tears were quickly dried. Russian revolutionaries do not weep easily. Instead of tears a hard glitter filled the eyes of a fierce fellow. "But we will be avenged," he shouted. "For every one of our comrades who has died like this we will send ten of the bourgeois to their graves." I shuddered in the presence of a terrible fanaticism. Poor ghosts! If they could rise from the dead would they not tell us to make no more human sacrifices to their memory? Would they not speak to us of a better way?

I tried hard to get a copy of the mournful song we sang on this and many occasions subsequently. I was several times promised it but it never came. The words I never knew for they were Russian, but the melody I captured and I give it as it printed itself upon my mind. It will be recognised by Russian readers.