Part 44 (2/2)
”Come,” said Nadia. And with a careless air, Alcide rose and followed her, making a sign to Blount to accompany him.
But if the surprise of the correspondents had been great at meeting Nadia on the raft it was boundless when they perceived Michael Strogoff, whom they had believed to be no longer living.
Michael had not moved at their approach. Jolivet turned towards the girl. ”He does not see you, gentlemen,” said Nadia. ”The Tartars have burnt out his eyes! My poor brother is blind!”
A feeling of lively compa.s.sion exhibited itself on the faces of Blount and his companion. In a moment they were seated beside Michael, pressing his hand and waiting until he spoke to them.
”Gentlemen,” said Michael, in a low voice, ”you ought not to know who I am, nor what I am come to do in Siberia. I ask you to keep my secret.
Will you promise me to do so?”
”On my honor,” answered Jolivet.
”On my word as a gentleman,” added Blount.
”Good, gentlemen.”
”Can we be of any use to you?” asked Harry Blount. ”Could we not help you to accomplish your task?”
”I prefer to act alone,” replied Michael.
”But those blackguards have destroyed your sight,” said Alcide.
”I have Nadia, and her eyes are enough for me!”
In half an hour the raft left the little port of Livenitchnaia, and entered the river. It was five in the evening and getting dusk. The night promised to be dark and very cold also, for the temperature was already below zero.
Alcide and Blount, though they had promised to keep Michael's secret, did not leave him. They talked in a low voice, and the blind man, adding what they told him to what he already knew, was able to form an exact idea of the state of things. It was certain that the Tartars had actually invested Irkutsk, and that the three columns had effected a junction. There was no doubt that the Emir and Ivan Ogareff were before the capital.
But why did the Czar's courier exhibit such haste to get there, now that the Imperial letter could no longer be given by him to the Grand Duke, and when he did not even know the contents of it? Alcide Jolivet and Blount could not understand it any more than Nadia had done.
No one spoke of the past, except when Jolivet thought it his duty to say to Michael, ”We owe you some apology for not shaking hands with you when we separated at Ichim.”
”No, you had reason to think me a coward!”
”At any rate,” added the Frenchman, ”you knouted the face of that villain finely, and he will carry the mark of it for a long time!”
”No, not a long time!” replied Michael quietly.
Half an hour after leaving Livenitchnaia, Blount and his companion were acquainted with the cruel trials through which Michael and his companion had successively pa.s.sed. They could not but heartily admire his energy, which was only equaled by the young girl's devotion. Their opinion of Michael was exactly what the Czar had expressed at Moscow: ”Indeed, this is a Man!”
The raft swiftly threaded its way among the blocks of ice which were carried along in the current of the Angara. A moving panorama was displayed on both sides of the river, and, by an optical illusion, it appeared as if it was the raft which was motionless before a succession of picturesque scenes. Here were high granite cliffs, there wild gorges, down which rushed a torrent; sometimes appeared a clearing with a still smoking village, then thick pine forests blazing. But though the Tartars had left their traces on all sides, they themselves were not to be seen as yet, for they were more especially ma.s.sed at the approaches to Irkutsk.
All this time the pilgrims were repeating their prayers aloud, and the old boatman, shoving away the blocks of ice which pressed too near them, imperturbably steered the raft in the middle of the rapid current of the Angara.
CHAPTER XI BETWEEN TWO BANKS
BY eight in the evening, the country, as the state of the sky had foretold, was enveloped in complete darkness. The moon being new had not yet risen. From the middle of the river the banks were invisible. The cliffs were confounded with the heavy, low-hanging clouds. At intervals a puff of wind came from the east, but it soon died away in the narrow valley of the Angara.
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