But Michael was already in the saddle.
At that moment he heard a report, and felt a ball pass through his tunic.
Without turning his head, without replying, he spurred on, and, clearing the brushwood with a tremendous bound, he galloped at full speed toward the Obi.
The Uzbeks’ horses being unsaddled gave him a small start, but they could not be long in setting off in pursuit of him; and indeed in less than two minutes after he left the wood he heard the tramp of several horses gradually gaining on him.
Day was now beginning to break, and objects at some distance were becoming visible.
Michael turned his head, and perceived a horseman rapidly approaching him.
It was the deh-baschi. Being better mounted, this officer had distanced his detachment, and threatened to come up with the fugitive.
Without drawing rein, Michael extended his revolver, and took a moment’s aim. The Uzbek officer, hit in the breast, rolled on the ground.
But the other horsemen followed him closely, and without waiting to assist the deh-baschi, exciting each other by their shouts, digging their spurs into their horses’ sides, they gradually diminished the distance between themselves and Michael.
For half an hour only was the latter able to keep out of range of the Tartars, but he well knew that his horse was becoming weaker, and dreaded every instant that he would stumble never to rise again.
It was now light, although the sun had not yet risen above the horizon.
Two versts distant could be seen a pale line bordered by a few trees.
This was the Obi, which flows from the southwest to the northeast, the surface almost level with the ground, its bed being but the steppe itself.
Several times shots were fired at Michael, but without hitting him, and several times too he discharged his revolver on those of the soldiers who pressed him too closely. Each time an Uzbek rolled on the ground, midst cries of rage from his companions.
But this pursuit could only terminate to Michael’s disadvantage. His horse was almost exhausted. He managed to reach the bank of the river.
The Uzbek detachment was now not more than fifty paces behind him.
The Obi was deserted—not a boat of any description which could take him over the water!
“Courage, my brave horse!” cried Michael. “Come! A last effort!”
And he plunged into the river, which here was half a verst in width.
It would have been difficult to stand against the current—indeed, Michael’s horse could get no footing. He must therefore swim across the river, although it was rapid as a torrent. Even to attempt it showed Michael’s marvelous courage.
The soldiers reached the bank, but hesitated to plunge in.
The pendja-baschi seized his musket and took aim at Michael, whom he could see in the middle of the stream. The shot was fired, and Michael’s horse, struck in the side, was borne away by the current.
His master, speedily disentangling himself from his stirrups, struck out boldly for the shore. In the midst of a hailstorm of balls he managed to reach the opposite side, and disappeared in the rushes which covered that bank of the Obi.
XVII
The Rivals
Michael was in comparative safety, though his situation was still terrible.
Now that the faithful animal who had so bravely borne him had met his death in the waters of the river, how was he to continue his journey?
He was on foot, without provisions, in a country devastated by the invasion, overrun by the Emir’s scouts, and still at a considerable distance from the place he was striving to reach.
“By Heaven, I will get there!” he exclaimed, in reply to all the reasons for faltering. “God will protect our sacred Russia.”
Michael was out of reach of the Uzbek horsemen. They had not dared to pursue him through the river, and must besides have thought he was drowned, for after his disappearance beneath the water they had seen nothing more of him.
But Michael, creeping up among the gigantic rushes, had reached a higher part of the bank, though not without difficulty, for the thick mud deposited by the overflowing of the water made it slippery in the extreme.
Once more on solid ground Michael stopped to consider what he should do next. He wished to avoid Tomsk, now occupied by the Tartar troops. Nevertheless, he must reach some town, or at least a post-house, where he could procure a horse. A horse once found, he would throw himself out of the beaten track, and not again take to the Irkutsk road until in the neighborhood of Krasnoyarsk. From that place, if he were quick, he hoped to find the way still open, and he intended to go through the Lake Baikal provinces in a southeasterly direction.
Michael began by going eastward.
By following the course of the Obi two versts further, he reached a picturesque little town lying on a small hill. A few churches, with Byzantine cupolas colored green and gold, stood up against the gray sky.
This is Kolyvan, where the officers and people employed at Kamskiy and other towns take refuge during the summer from the unhealthy climate of the Baraba. According to the latest news obtained by the Czar’s courier, Kolyvan could not be yet in the hands of the invaders. The Tartar troops, divided into two columns, had marched to the left on Omsk, to the right on Tomsk, neglecting the intermediate country.
Michael Strogoff’s plan was simply this—to reach Kolyvan before the arrival of the Uzbek horsemen, who would ascend the left bank of the Obi. There, even if he had to pay ten times more than they were worth, he would procure clothes and a horse, and resume the road to Irkutsk across the southern steppe.
It was now three o’clock in the morning. The neighborhood of Kolyvan was very still, and appeared to have been totally abandoned. The country population had evidently fled to the northwards, to the province of Yeniseysk, dreading the invasion, which they could not resist.
Michael was walking at a
