"Your prisoner—the Czechs," I replied.
With magnificent noblesse oblige he turned to the Whites. "Gentlemen, he is yours," he declared magnanimously.
He appeased his own soldiers by letting them loose on my papers (they were afterwards delivered to the American Consul).
The Whites hustled me into their automobile and thru the city where a few days earlier I had ridden as a guest of the Soviet, I rode now ringed with bayonets and with two revolvers pressed against my ribs—a prisoner of the Whites.
White headquarters was surrounded by an excited bourgeois mob watching the round up of Reds and hailing each victim with catcalls and cries of "give him the rope." I was pushed thru the jeering crowd into the building and by great good luck straight into the arms of Squersky, a former acquaintance. He motioned me not to recognize him and in due time secured my release. This time I came out with a document which read: "Citizens—You are requested not to arrest the American Williams"
Homeward
Bound.
But there was little protection in this paper, for black hatred against the Soviet grew from day to day. I had the feeling of a hunted animal and in ten days lost as many pounds. "At any moment you may lose your life," said the American Vice-Consul. "Two parties have sworn to shoot you down at sight."
