Page:Poet Lore, volume 28, 1917.djvu/568

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546
THE FOUR BARE WALLS

the truth from your honor. Pardon me, please, and I will finish in a minute. (Seats himself, reiterating all that he heard from the chaplain.) The riot is then suppressed?

Chaplain.—At least for the present. But I believe it will break out again after the troops are withdrawn.

Melichar.—And it was announced . . . the official telegrams stated that there was not a sign of the slightest hint of resistance. Was the struggle between the people and the troops settled at the first shot?

Chaplain.—There were several. The firing continued until it resulted in a hand-to-hand conflict between the soldiers’ bayonets and the miners’ weapons.

Melichar.—But there are only four of the dead, so it was claimed.

Chaplain.—It is time that the truth was leaking out. There are ten dead, and twenty-six mortally wounded. Those with slight wounds are so numerous that they are not even counted.

Melichar.—I would like the names of the dead.

Chaplain.—There is poor old Rokos,—a splendid old fellow,—a man who was a rock of strength. He fell while leading the miners when the first shot was fired. Then Kotora, Pluhar, Nemec, Schulze . . .

Tonicka.—Sutnar, Kliment, and Dufek.

Chaplain.—Yes, and four others . . . I do not recall them now. Tonight I will think of their names.

Melichar.—That is sufficient for the present. The papers did not get a single name. The seriously wounded, twenty-six .

Chaplain.—Among them is this unfortunate Kralenec, one of the unknown who gladly gives his life for a cause that nations fight battles over. What do you know, you people in Prague, about the situation here? You talk, and consider, and discuss,—but here is the actual battle-field, here lives are forfeited, here for our convictions, our patriotism, we are killed, here we fall like leaves before a gale . . . that man over there, always wished as a youth, to accomplish something worth living and striving for. An ugly fate took him at his word. It permitted him to step out to perform a great deed,—but with the first great step, it crushed in his vitals, stamped upon him with a leer, and then with a diabolical laugh, passed on. And there with him, lies the mangled existence of his entire family.

Melichar (Looking respectfully at Kralenec).—One of those sacred martyrs, on whose grave grows the ivy that inspires an