CHAPTER X
MERCY OR DEATH TO THE WHITES?
It was a black outlook for the White Guards hemmed inside the telephone station. But now comes this jubilant news that an armored car is hurrying to their rescue. They gaze intently down the street for the first glimpse of it.
As it comes swinging in from the Nevsky, they hail it with cheers. Like a great iron steed it lumbers along and stops before the barricades. Cheers again from the Whites. Ill-starred cheers! They do not know that they are cheering their end. They do not know that this is not their car; it has passed into the hands of the Reds. It is a Trojan horse, within whose armored belly are concealed the soldiers of the Revolution. It slews about until its muzzle is pointed thru the archway. Then suddenly it spouts a stream of lead as a garden hose spouts water. Screams now instead of cheers! Tumbling over boxes and one another, the officers, in one shrieking, tangled mass, go crashing thru the hallway and up the stairs.
Poetic justice! Here where a few hours earlier these Counter-Revolutionists pressed their revolvers
134
