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Updated: June 5, 2025
During the journey from Kolyvan to the camp that is to say, for several hours Blount, by leaning on his companion's arm, had been enabled to follow the rest of the prisoners. He tried to make known that he was a British subject; but it had no effect on the barbarians, who only replied by prods with a lance or sword.
But were the Russians defending it or the Tartars? It being impossible to decide this, Michael became greatly perplexed. He was not more than half a verst from Kolyvan when he observed flames shooting up among the houses of the town, and the steeple of a church fell in the midst of clouds of smoke and fire. Was the struggle, then, in Kolyvan? Michael was compelled to think so.
"Hallo!" said Harry Blount. "Just so," answered Jolivet. In the meantime the situation at Kolyvan was alarming in the extreme. The battle was raging nearer, and the firing was incessant. At that moment the telegraph office shook to its foundations. A shell had made a hole in the wall, and a cloud of dust filled the office.
It presented a most animated appearance. There stood the Tartar tents; there Feofar-Khan, the terrible Emir of Bokhara, was encamped; and there on the following day, the 7th of August, were brought the prisoners taken at Kolyvan after the annihilation of the Russian force, which had vainly attempted to oppose the progress of the invaders.
Perhaps you ask me that to find out where I come from. I come from Kolyvan." "From Kolyvan?" repeated Michael. "Then it was there I met you; you were in the telegraph office?" "That may be," replied Nicholas. "I was stationed there. I was the clerk in charge of the messages." "And you stayed at your post up to the last moment?" "Why, it's at that moment one ought to be there!"
Yet, when the vice-chancellor inquired what conditions the Czar hoped to obtain from his victorious adversary, the Russian diplomat calmly claimed the greater part of Livonia, with Narva, Ivangrod, Kolyvan, Koporie, and Derpt and future events were to prove that he had not asked too much. Before long this boldness began to reap its own reward.
Blount deposited a pile of roubles on the shelf, whilst his rival looked on with a sort of stupefaction. "Good," said the clerk. And with the greatest coolness in the world he began to telegraph the following dispatch: "Daily Telegraph, London. "From Kolyvan, Government of Omsk, Siberia, 6th August. "Engagement between Russian and Tartar troops."
"I don't know." Such calmness, such indifference, in the midst of these terrible events, was scarcely credible. "And is not the wire cut?" said Michael. "It is cut between Kolyvan and Krasnoiarsk, but it is still working between Kolyvan and the Russian frontier." "For the government?" "For the government, when it thinks proper. For the public, when they pay.
"The little Russian body is engaged with the Tartar army! Pray Heaven that I may arrive at Kolyvan before them!" The firing became gradually louder, and soon to the left of Kolyvan a mist collected not smoke, but those great white clouds produced by discharges of artillery. The Usbeck horsemen stopped on the left of the Obi, to await the result of the battle.
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.
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