All things happened abruptly on that day, and with an abruptness that was sickening the mob checked itself.  I came in violent collision with a large woman in front of me (the man with the split coat had vanished), while those behind collided against me.  A devilish pandemonium reigned,—­shrieks, curses, and cries of death, while above all rose the churning rattle of machine-guns and the put-a-put, put-a-put of rifles.  At first I could make out nothing.  People were falling about me right and left.  The woman in front doubled up and went down, her hands on her abdomen in a frenzied clutch.  A man was quivering against my legs in a death-struggle.

It came to me that we were at the head of the column.  Half a mile of it had disappeared—­where or how I never learned.  To this day I do not know what became of that half-mile of humanity—­whether it was blotted out by some frightful bolt of war, whether it was scattered and destroyed piecemeal, or whether it escaped.  But there we were, at the head of the column instead of in its middle, and we were being swept out of life by a torrent of shrieking lead.

As soon as death had thinned the jam, Garthwaite, still grasping my arm, led a rush of survivors into the wide entrance of an office building.  Here, at the rear, against the doors, we were pressed by a panting, gasping mass of creatures.  For some time we remained in this position without a change in the situation.

“I did it beautifully,” Garthwaite was lamenting to me.  “Ran you right into a trap.  We had a gambler’s chance in the street, but in here there is no chance at all.  It’s all over but the shouting.  Vive la Revolution!”

Then, what he expected, began.  The Mercenaries were killing without quarter.  At first, the surge back upon us was crushing, but as the killing continued the pressure was eased.  The dead and dying went down and made room.  Garthwaite put his mouth to my ear and shouted, but in the frightful din I could not catch what he said.  He did not wait.  He seized me and threw me down.  Next he dragged a dying woman over on top of me, and, with much squeezing and shoving, crawled in beside me and partly over me.  A mound of dead and dying began to pile up over us, and over this mound, pawing and moaning, crept those that still survived.  But these, too, soon ceased, and a semi-silence settled down, broken by groans and sobs and sounds of strangulation.

I should have been crushed had it not been for Garthwaite.  As it was, it seemed inconceivable that I could bear the weight I did and live.  And yet, outside of pain, the only feeling I possessed was one of curiosity.  How was it going to end?  What would death be like?  Thus did I receive my red baptism in that Chicago shambles.  Prior to that, death to me had been a theory; but ever afterward death has been a simple fact that does not matter, it is so easy.