The soldiers would have cut the unfortunate Nicholas to pieces, but at a sign from their officer, he was bound instead, placed across a horse, and the detachment galloped off.
The rope which fastened Michael, gnawed through by him, broke by the sudden start of the horse, and the half-tipsy rider galloped on without perceiving that his prisoner had escaped.
Michael and Nadia found themselves alone on the road.
IX
In the Steppe
Michael Strogoff and Nadia were once more as free as they had been in the journey from Perm to the banks of the Irtysh. But how the conditions under which they traveled were altered! Then, a comfortable tarantass, fresh horses, well-kept post-horses assured the rapidity of their journey. Now they were on foot; it was utterly impossible to procure any other means of locomotion, they were without resources, not knowing how to obtain the commonest necessaries, and they had still nearly four hundred versts to go! Moreover, Michael could now only see with Nadia’s eyes.
As to the friend whom chance had given them, they had just lost him, and fearful might be his fate. Michael had thrown himself down under the brushwood at the side of the road. Nadia stood beside him, waiting for the word from him to continue the march.
It was ten o’clock. The sun had more than three hours before disappeared below the horizon. There was not a house, not a hut in sight. The last of the Tartars was lost in the distance. Michael and Nadia were quite alone.
“What will they do with our friend?” exclaimed the girl. “Poor Nicholas! Our meeting will have been fatal to him!”
Michael made no response.
“Michael,” continued Nadia, “do you not know that he defended you when you were the Tartars’ sport; that he risked his life for me?”
Michael was still silent. Motionless, his face buried in his hands; of what was he thinking? Perhaps, although he did not answer, he heard Nadia speak.
Yes! he heard her, for when the young girl added—
“Where shall I lead you, Michael?”
“To Irkutsk!” he replied.
“By the high road?”
“Yes, Nadia.”
Michael was still the same man who had sworn, whatever happened, to accomplish his object. To follow the high road, was certainly to go the shortest way. If the vanguard of Feofar-Khan’s troops appeared, it would then be time to strike across the country.
Nadia took Michael’s hand, and they started.
The next morning, the 12th of September, twenty versts further, they made a short halt in the village of Joulounovskoë. It was burnt and deserted. All night Nadia had tried to see if the body of Nicholas had not been left on the road, but it was in vain that she looked among the ruins, and searched among the dead. Till then, he seemed to have been spared. But might they not be reserving him for some cruel torture on their arrival in the camp at Irkutsk?
Nadia, exhausted with hunger, from which her companion was also suffering terribly, was fortunate enough to find in one of the houses a quantity of dried meat and soukharis, pieces of bread, which, dried by evaporation, preserve their nutritive qualities for an indefinite time.
Michael and the girl loaded themselves with as much as they could carry. They had thus a supply of food for several days, and as to water, there would be no want of that in a district rendered fertile by the numerous little affluents of the Angara.
They continued their journey. Michael walked with a firm step, and only slackened his pace for his companion’s sake. Nadia, not wishing to retard him, obliged herself to walk. Happily, he could not see to what a miserable state fatigue had reduced her.
However, Michael guessed it.
“You are quite done up, poor child,” he said sometimes.
“No,” she would reply.
“When you can no longer walk, I will carry you.”
“Yes, Michael.”
During this day they came to the little river Oka, but it was fordable, and they had no difficulty in crossing.
The sky was cloudy and the temperature moderate. There was some fear that the rain might come on, which would much have increased their misery. A few showers fell, but they did not last.
They went on as before, hand in hand, speaking little, Nadia looking about on every side; twice a day they halted. Six hours of the night were given to sleep. In a few huts Nadia again found a little mutton, which is so common in this country that it is sold at two kopecks and a half a pound.
But, contrary to Michael’s hopes, there was not a single beast of burden in the country; horses, camels—all had been either killed or carried off. They must still continue to plod on across this weary steppe on foot.
The third Tartar column, on its way to Irkutsk, had left plain traces of its course: here a dead horse, there an abandoned cart. The bodies of unfortunate Siberians lay along the road, principally at the entrances to villages. Nadia, overcoming her repugnance, looked at all these corpses! …
In fact, the danger lay, not before, but behind. The advance guard of the Emir’s army, commanded by Ivan Ogareff, might at any moment appear. The boats sent down the lower Yenisey must by this time have reached Krasnoyarsk and been made use of. The road was therefore open to the invaders. No Russian force could be opposed to them between Krasnoyarsk and Lake Baikal, Michael therefore expected before long the appearance of the Tartar scouts.
At each halt, Nadia climbed some hill and looked anxiously to the Westward, but as yet no cloud of dust had signaled the approach of a troop of horse.
Then the march was resumed; and when Michael felt that he was dragging poor Nadia forward too rapidly, he went at a slower pace. They spoke little, and only of Nicholas. The young girl recalled all that this companion of a few days had done for them.
In answering, Michael tried to give
