now and then by a burst of shouts and an
occasional scream.

Pellican rushed into my room, followed by
Maslovitch and a young English student.

"Quick, quick, 'Campbell. The peasants are
attacking the doors, and threatening to kill
every poisoning doctor they find."

"Pellican, go out the back way and try and
bring some soldiers. Go to the main guard at
the Winter Palace. I am afraid Alexis has
turned traitor."

"No, Campbell," replied Pellican. "I don't
go while there is danger. I stop with you.
But come, we must keep the door against these
madmen. Maslovitch, run through the wards
and rouse all the fellows."

Pellican and I hurried to the great entrance,
against which some forty axes could be now
heard ringing. We had not got down more
than the first corridor of the enormous building,
when a tremendous splintering crash, and a
howl as of so many wolves, told us part of the
door had fallen. Every moment the roar of
voices grew louder. We had reached the last
passage leading to the great hall, when a figure
in white ran to me from a side-room and threw
herself at my feet. It was Olga.

"Save my father, save my father, Mr. Campbell!
They are murdering him. He tore himself
from me, and has gone among them."

I kissed her forehead, and placing her in the
arms of one of the nurses, ran with Pellican down
the long flight of steps that led into the hall.

There were forty or fifty great bearded peasants
standing beside the half-brokendoor, swinging
their axes and shouting, as they faced an old
porter and Dr. Tillmann with drawn swords.

"Beasts, slaves, pigs!" cried the infuriated
old donkey; "advance one step further to defile
the hospital the emperor founded, and you die.
Back, you hogs!"

As he spoke, he advanced and struck at the
leading insurgents. The leaders fell back before
the feeble blows of his sword, but a rough
butcher's man behind, his hands still red from
the slaughter-house, struck him down over their
heads with a crashing blow from a pole-axe.
By this time I and Pellican were surrounded
by some twenty or thirty students, porters, and
assistants, all armed with bludgeons and sword-
sticks. We bore down to the rescue, and driving
the poor wretches back over the door, cleared
the hall in a minute. We instantly carried off
the body of the wounded doctor into the museum,
which opened to the left of the hall; and as the
chief entrance to the main wards and to the
doctor's apartments lay through that room, we
agreed to make that place our citadel: barricading
the door with chairs, forms, stools, and desks.

Fortunately, our assailants, being chiefly bent
on our murder, contented themselves for the
present with attacking this entrance, and did not
proceed, as they might have done, to sack the
hospital, and carry off the patients. Every
minute's respite we obtained, gave us hope of
the arrival of the soldiers. It was a dark night,
but by the light of the torches that some of the
peasants carried, we could see the seething mass
of greasy black-bearded faces rolling and
billowing under the windows.

Our scheme of defence was soon carried out.
The doctor, who had received a dangerous
wound, was placed on a bed in a side-room
under the care of Maslovitch, who was not of
a combative nature. When I went to see him
and prescribe remedies, I found Olga already at
his side. She gave me a look of unspeakable
gratitude, and held her hand out for me to kiss.

"Are we in danger?" she asked, in a low
voice.

"We are in some danger, Olga, but Heaven
will protect us— pray for us!"

When I returned, I found that Pellican had
arranged his force with great strategic skill up
in the two iron galleries on either side of the
barricaded door of the museum. We resolved
to defend the door by showering jars of spirits
and the heavy bones of skeletons upon every
assailant that dared show his face over the threshold.
Alas! for poor Dr. Tillmann's specimens—
the pride of his life, the treasures amassed during
long years of patient collecting— down they were
to go, splintering missiles to check the fury of
an enraged mob.

"Not a man must throw a bottle till I give
the signal," cried Pellican from the second
balcony, waving a huge glass jar. "When I
cry Anafema! Harnisch throws, then the rest in
turns. We must be cool, or we shall be all
dead men before the morning. All I wish is,
that every glass was full of vitriol: then we'd
mark the rascals. Never mind what wounds
you inflict, for if we can only keep a whole skin
till the soldiers come, the fellows will return
to us to be cured. Now, to your posts, for
they are coming on, with a vengeance! Look
out, Campbell; mind, we begin with the lower
shelves. They are dried up, and not of much
use. Now then, and God help us!"

There came a rush against the barricade, a
crash of axes, and with shouts of "Give us up
our children," "Give us up our brothers," "Tear
the poisoners to pieces!" the crowd hewed down
the door and rushed in, clambering over the
shattered defences.

Four or five of the more daring broke in pellmell,
and, astonished to see no enemy drawn up
to receive them, they paused for an instant to
wait for their companions.

Pellican gave the word, and down came a
shower of glass jars, thigh-bones, pestles and
mortars, and other extraordinary missiles. Two
of the peasants fell stunned; the others, bleeding
and frightened, scrambled back into the hall.

Three times the assault was resumed, and
three times our splintering rain of horrible
pickles drove the serfs back, staggering, amazed,
and wounded.

"Never mind," they cried from the hall;
"wait till the morning, then we will kill every
doctor in the hospital, and throw you all into
the canal!"

The fourth assault was more furious than the
three previous attacks. Reinforced by hundreds