The Maccabaean

It was Christmas night, and the pogrom was on. The torch of conflagration had touched the Jewish quarter. The narrow streets, the low dark houses, and the pictured shop signs that swung before each of them—all shone blood-red in the rising glare. The light of the Chanuka candles, those Yule- tide lights of the Jews, commemorating the victory of the Maccabees in the days of old when strength and valor were still in the lion heart of Judah, shone pale in the little windows and trembled as if in fear before the greater glare in the streets outside, even as the pale figures behind the candles quivered in terror before the oncoming rush of the mob.

The holy ikon was now brought to the upper end of the street to view the bloody scene and find delight therein. Each man of the mob, as he saw the holy image, crossed himself in the Russian fashion, touching the brow —in memory of the crown of thorns— and the side—in memory of the spear thrust. Then they turned to their work of "holy vengeance"; and presently they were raging with full fury. The streets grew redder in the glare of bonfires and of blazing homes; the hiss and crackle of the burning grew more loud. There were savage cries and the wailing of victims. There were piteous moans and brutal laughter. Dark figures rushed through the flames, to disappear on the other side; and presently horrible shrieks and cries for mercy would come from where they had vanished. The figures appeared again through

the fire, and their clubs and weapons were bloody. Bottles seized from plundered taverns were dashed against the stones while still half-full. The glare in the eyes of the plunderers grew wilder and more savage. The thirst for blood grew hotter. They threw away the half-empty bottles; they had no time to drink them out; there were more Jews to kill, and they could have enough vodka presently—all they wanted. The dark liquid welled from the bottles that lay in the streets and trickled slowly along the ground. But there were other trickling streams amid the flames; and they were not vodka. There were other blots of dark wet upon the ground; and they were not wine. With the loosing of these streams there had been terrible cries and great pain; and with their flowing, lives, had ebbed away, moaning to their God. But the glare of the burning homes drew a red curtain over the street- tops and shut the heavens from view ; and the glare in the eyes of the murderers, the burning madness of the vodka in their veins, and the hot thirst that the sight of blood woke in them for more blood—all this drew a bloody curtain over the windows of their souls and did not let them see God. Yet the holy image was in sight of all; and around the necks of each of them, hanging to a thin string, there showed a small cross of brass or wood. Those of wood hung dead, but the brass ones dangled and blazed blood-red as those who wore them leaped through the flames.