on with short staccato shouts, dozens of willing men, stripped to the waist, jumped forward, and the timbers were driven with a tremendous impetus against the gates.  As they crashed against the wood, and half splintered the stout entrances, a succession of shots rang out from the roofs, and I saw the French marauders sliding rapidly down and fall out of sight into the compound.  The defence had been broken down—­at least, at this point.  It seemed quite over.

It was the work of a moment to hack the gates aside, and through the choking fumes and charred remains the whole infuriated crowd now poured.  The little blaze, having met with much brick and stone, was smouldering out, and so long as it was not kindled anew there was no danger of the fire spreading.

Like a rush of muddy waters, the sweating, brown-backed men, now mad with a lust for pillage, tore through the first courtyard.  I was born along with them perforce like a piece of flotsam on a raging flood-tide; there was no turning back.  Besides, such things do not happen every day....

The Frenchmen and their companions had already disappeared inside, and on the ground lay two of the pawn-shop men, dead or dying, swimming silently in their own blood.  Beyond this there was a first hall, empty and devoid of furniture, excepting for immensely long wooden counters; and as I jumped through to the warehouses beyond, I saw dimly in the darkened room those dozens of city rapscallions whom we had unleashed hurl themselves on to the counters and literally tear them to pieces.  They knew!  Thousands of strings of cash were laid bare by this action, and with the quickness of lightning hundreds of furious hands tore and snatched, while hot voices smote the air in snarls and gasps.  They wanted this money—­would lose their lives for it.  In an instant the pawn-shop hall had been turned into a sulphurous saturnalia horrid to witness.  That gave you a grim idea of mob violence.  I rushed to escape it....

In the warehouses beyond I found the Frenchmen and the first Cossack, who had directed the carrying of the place by assault, breaking open with rude jests chests and boxes, and flinging to the ground the contents of countless shelves.  They cared nothing for the things they found; they were hunting for treasure.  With curses as their disappointment deepened, and always hurling more and more shelves and cupboards to the ground, they soon reduced room after room to a confusion such as I have never before witnessed.  Rich silks and costly furs, boxes of trinkets, embroideries, women’s head-dresses, and hundreds of other things were flung to the ground and trampled under foot into shapeless masses in a few moments, raising a choking dust which cut one’s breathing.  They wanted only treasure, these men, gold if possible, something which possessed an instant value for them—­something whose very touch spelled fortune.  Nothing else.  In some amazement I watched this frantic scene.