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Updated: May 22, 2025
There were innumerable couriers on the roads both to Wladimir and to the Ural Mountains. The exchange of telegraphic dispatches with Moscow was incessant. Michael Strogoff found himself in the central square when the report spread that the head of police had been summoned by a courier to the palace of the governor-general. An important dispatch from Moscow, it was said, was the cause of it.
"Your Highness," answered Michael, "ask me rather the name of the man who lies at your feet!" "That man, I know him! He is a servant of my brother! He is the Czar's courier!" "That man, your Highness, is not a courier of the Czar! He is Ivan Ogareff!" "Ivan Ogareff!" exclaimed the Grand Duke. "Yes, Ivan the Traitor!" "But who are you, then?" "Michael Strogoff!"
One of them was humming a song of strange rhythm, which might be thus rendered: "Glitters brightly the gold In my raven locks streaming Rich coral around My graceful neck gleaming; Like a bird of the air, Through the wide world I roam." The laughing girl continued her song, but Michael Strogoff ceased to listen.
There Michael Strogoff was again compelled to lose, for necessary rest, the end of that day and the entire night; but starting again on the following morning, and still traversing the semi-inundated soil, on the 2nd of August, at four o'clock in the afternoon, after a stage of fifty miles he reached Kamsk. The country had changed.
The merchant, rude enough by nature, grumbled some words against "people who interfere with what does not concern them," but Michael Strogoff cast on him a glance so stern that the sleeper leant on the opposite side, and relieved the young traveler from his unpleasant vicinity. The latter looked at the young man for an instant, and mute and modest thanks were in that look.
Peter Strogoff had, however, passed the fatal number without even a scratch. From that time, his son Michael, aged eleven years, never failed to accompany him to the hunt, carrying the ragatina or spear to aid his father, who was armed only with the knife.
Michael Strogoff wore a handsome military uniform something resembling that of a light-cavalry officer in the field boots, spurs, half tightly-fitting trousers, brown pelisse, trimmed with fur and ornamented with yellow braid. On his breast glittered a cross and several medals. Michael Strogoff belonged to the special corps of the Czar's couriers, ranking as an officer among those picked men.
From its situation, this part of the province, lying in the fork formed by the two Tartar columns which had bifurcated, one upon Omsk and the other upon Tomsk, had hitherto escaped the horrors of the invasion. But the natural obstacles were now about to disappear, for, if he experienced no delay, Michael Strogoff should on the morrow be free of the Baraba and arrive at Kolyvan.
"No; a lance-thrust in the head, now healing," replied the mujik. "After a few days' rest, little father, thou wilt be able to proceed. Thou didst fall into the river; but the Tartars neither touched nor searched thee; and thy purse is still in thy pocket." Michael Strogoff gripped the mujik's hand.
From his Siberian origin, and because he had passed his childhood in the Steppes, Michael Strogoff, it has been said, understood almost all the languages in usage from Tartary to the Sea of Ice. As to the exact signification of the words he had heard, he did not trouble his head. For why should it interest him? It was already late when he thought of returning to his inn to take some repose.
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