“And mine only as far as Krasnoyarsk,” answered Harry Blount, in a no less satisfied tone.
“Then you know also that orders have been sent to the troops of Nikolaevsk?”
“I do, sir; and at the same time a telegram was sent to the Cossacks of the government of Tobolsk to concentrate their forces.”
“Nothing can be more true, Mr. Blount; I was equally well acquainted with these measures, and you may be sure that my dear cousin shall know something of them tomorrow.”
“Exactly as the readers of the Daily Telegraph shall know it also, M. Jolivet.”
“Well, when one sees all that is going on. …”
“And when one hears all that is said. …”
“An interesting campaign to follow, Mr. Blount.”
“I shall follow it, M. Jolivet!”
“Then it is possible that we shall find ourselves on ground less safe, perhaps, than the floor of this ballroom.”
“Less safe, certainly, but—”
“But much less slippery,” added Alcide Jolivet, holding up his companion, just as the latter, drawing back, was about to lose his equilibrium.
Thereupon the two correspondents separated, pleased enough to know that the one had not stolen a march on the other.
At that moment the doors of the rooms adjoining the great reception saloon were thrown open, disclosing to view several immense tables beautifully laid out, and groaning under a profusion of valuable china and gold plate. On the central table, reserved for the princes, princesses, and members of the corps diplomatique, glittered an epergne of inestimable price, brought from London, and around this chef-d’oeuvre of chased gold reflected under the light of the lusters a thousand pieces of most beautiful service from the manufactories of Sèvres had ever produced.
The guests of the New Palace immediately began to stream towards the supper-rooms.
At that moment. General Kissoff, who had just re-entered, quickly approached the officer of chasseurs.
“Well?” asked the latter abruptly, as he had done the former time.
“Telegrams pass Tomsk no longer, sire.”
“A courier this moment!”
The officer left the hall and entered a large antechamber adjoining.
It was a cabinet with plain oak furniture, and situated in an angle of the New Palace. Several pictures, amongst others some by Horace Vernet, hung on the wall.
The officer hastily opened a window, as if he felt the want of air, and stepped out on a balcony to breathe the pure atmosphere of a lovely July night.
Beneath his eyes, bathed in moonlight, lay a fortified enclosure, from which rose two cathedrals, three palaces, and an arsenal. Around this enclosure could be seen three distinct towns: Kitay-gorod, Bely Gorod, Zemlyanoy Gorod—European, Tartar, and Chinese quarters of great extent, commanded by towers, belfries, minarets, and the cupolas of three hundred churches, with green domes, surmounted by the silver cross. A little winding river, here and there reflected the rays of the moon. All this together formed a curious mosaic of variously colored houses, set in an immense frame of ten leagues in circumference.
This river was the Moskowa; the town Moscow; the fortified enclosure the Kremlin; and the officer of chasseurs of the guard, who, with folded arms and thoughtful brow, was listening dreamily to the sounds floating from the New Palace over the old Muscovite city, was the Czar.
II
Russians and Tartars
The Czar had not so suddenly left the ballroom of the New Palace, when the fête he was giving to the civil and military authorities and principal people of Moscow was at the height of its brilliancy, without ample cause; for he had just received information that serious events were taking place beyond the frontiers of the Ural. It had become evident that a formidable rebellion threatened to wrest the Siberian provinces from the Russian crown.
Asiatic Russia, or Siberia, covers a superficial area of 1,790,208 square miles, and contains nearly two millions of inhabitants. Extending from the Ural Mountains, which separate it from Russia in Europe, to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, it is bounded on the south by Turkenstan and the Chinese Empire; on the north by the Arctic Ocean, from the Sea of Kara to Bering’s Straits. It is divided into several governments or provinces, those of Tobolsk, Yeniseysk, Irkutsk, Omsk, and Yakutsk; contains two districts, Okhotsk and Kamchatka; and possesses two countries, now under the Muscovite dominion—that of the Kyrgyz and that of the Chukchis. This immense extent of steppes, which includes more than one hundred and ten degrees from west to east, is a land to which criminals and political offenders are banished.
Two governor-generals represent the supreme authority of the Czar over this vast country. The higher one resides at Irkutsk, the far capital of Eastern Siberia. The River Chuna separates the two Siberias.
No rail yet furrows these wide plains, some of which are in reality extremely fertile. No iron ways lead from those precious mines which make the Siberian soil far richer below than above its surface. The traveler journeys in summer in a kibick or telga; in winter, in a sledge.
An electric telegraph, with a single wire more than eight thousand versts1 in length, alone affords communication between the western and eastern frontiers of Siberia. On issuing from the Ural, it passes through Yekaterinburg, Kasirnov, Tyumen, Ishim, Omsk, Ilimsk, Kolyvan, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Nizhneudinsk, Irkutsk, Verkne-Nertschink, Strelink, Albazin, Blagowstenks, Radde, Orlomskaya, Alexandrowskoe, and Nikolaevsk; and six rubles2 and nineteen kopecks are paid for every word sent from one end to the other. From Irkutsk there is a branch to Kyakhta, on the Mongolian frontier; and from thence, for thirty kopecks a word, the post conveys the dispatches to Peking in a fortnight.
It was this wire, extending from Yekaterinburg to Nikolaevsk, which had been cut, first beyond Tomsk, and then between Tomsk and Kolyvan.
This was why the Czar, to the communication made to him for the second time by General Kissoff, had answered by the words, “A courier this moment!”
The Czar remained motionless at the window for a few moments, when the door was again opened. The chief of police appeared
