Behind us the street was alive with
people running and stooping. We could no longer hear the cannon, and
the nearer we drew to the Winter Palace end of the city the quieter
and more deserted were the streets. The City Duma was all brightly
lighted. Beyond that we made out a dark mass of people, and a line
of sailors, who yelled furiously at us to stop. The machine slowed
down, and we climbed out.
It was an astonishing scene. Just at the corner of the Ekaterina
Canal, under an arc-light, a cordon of armed sailors was drawn
across the Nevsky, blocking the way to a crowd of people in column
of fours. There were about three or four hundred of them, men in
frock coats, well-dressed women, officers-all sorts and conditions
of people. Among them we recognised many of the delegates from the
Congress, leaders of the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries;
Avksentiev, the lean, red-bearded president of the Peasants'
Soviets, Sarokin, Kerensky's spokesman, Khintchuk, Abramovitch; and
at the head white-bearded old Schreider, Mayor of Petrograd, and
Prokopovitch, Minister of Supplies in the Provisional Government,
arrested that morning and released. I caught sight of Malkin,
reporter for the _Russian Daily News._ "Going to die in the Winter
Palace," he shouted cheerfully. The procession stood still, but from
the front of it came loud argument. Schreider and Prokopovitch were
bellowing at the big sailor who seemed in command.
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