Explore "At the Sign of the Sword" by William le Queux on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Outside in the streets could be heard the sound of rifle-fire, while the air was filled with the pungent odour of powder, and of burning wood.
The whole town had, by that time, become a veritable hell. Not far along the street, indeed in sight of the Hotel of the Sword, forty or so innocent men -- honest workers at a neighbouring factory -- had been drawn up against a wall. The front row was ordered to kneel, with their hands up, the others remaining standing behind them. A platoon of soldiers suddenly drew up in face of these unhappy men, with their rifles ready. In vain did the frantic women beg for mercy for their sons, husbands, and brothers. But the officer, grinning, ordered his men to fire. Some fell forward, dead, others were only slightly wounded. But the soldiers, to make sure, fired three volleys into that heap of men in their death throes. Such fell, hellish work had been ordered "as examples" by the glittering War Lord -- the man who declared that God was his guide in his arrogant desire to rule the world.