Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 6, 2025
Michael Strogoff's plan was simply this to reach Kolyvan before the arrival of the Usbeck horsemen, who would ascend the other bank of the Obi to the ferry. There 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.
Gradually, however, the young girl's clear glance, her reserve, and the mysterious sympathy which draws together those who are in misfortune, thawed Marfa Strogoff's coldness. Nadia for it was she was thus able, without knowing it, to render to the mother those attentions which she had herself received from the son. Her instinctive kindness had doubly inspired her.
NADIA, with the clear perception of a right-minded woman, guessed that some secret motive directed all Michael Strogoff's actions; that he, for a reason unknown to her, did not belong to himself; and that in this instance especially he had heroically sacrificed to duty even his resentment at the gross injury he had received. Nadia, therefore, asked no explanation from Michael.
She therefore immediately left the encampment. A quarter of an hour after, she reached Zabediero, and was shown into the house occupied by the Emir's lieutenant. Ogareff received the Tsigane directly. "What have you to tell me, Sangarre?" he asked. "Marfa Strogoff's son is in the encampment." "A prisoner?" "A prisoner." "Ah!" exclaimed Ogareff, "I shall know "
Michael Strogoff's horse, stung by these venomous insects, sprang forward as if the rowels of a thousand spurs had pierced his flanks. Mad with rage, he tore along over verst after verst with the speed of an express train, lashing his sides with his tail, seeking by the rapidity of his pace an alleviation of his torture.
"Then thou wilt pass whatever happens?" "I shall pass, or they shall kill me." "I want thee to live." "I shall live, and I shall pass," answered Michael Strogoff. The Czar appeared satisfied with Strogoff's calm and simple answer. "Go then, Michael Strogoff," said he, "go for God, for Russia, for my brother, and for myself!"
She had not caught sight of Michael, for he disappeared before she had time to look around; but the mother's gesture as she kept back Nadia had not escaped her, and the look in Marfa's eyes told her all. It was now beyond doubt that Marfa Strogoff's son, the Czar's courier, was at this moment in Zabediero, among Ivan Ogareff's prisoners. Sangarre did not know him, but she knew that he was there.
Should they not succumb to such fatigue? On what were they to live on the way? By what superhuman energy were they to pass the slopes of the Sayansk Mountains? Neither he nor Nadia could answer this! And yet, twelve days after, on the 2d of October, at six o'clock in the evening, a wide sheet of water lay at Michael Strogoff's feet. It was Lake Baikal.
The boatmen spoke of horrible atrocities committed by the invaders pillage, theft, incendiarism, murder. Such was the system of Tartar warfare. The people all fled before Feofar-Khan. Michael Strogoff's great fear was lest, in the depopulation of the towns, he should be unable to obtain the means of transport. He was therefore extremely anxious to reach Omsk.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking