In the winter, when everything is frozen over, when snow has levelled the ground and condensed the miasmatic exhalations, sledges glide easily and with impunity over the hardened crust of the Baraba. Hunters then frequent this game-abounding district for the taking of martens, sables, and those valuable foxes whose fur is in so much demand. But during summer the swamps again become miry and pestilential, and, when the waters are at too high a level, even impassable.
Michael Strogoff spurred his horse into the midst of a grassy prairie, differing greatly from the close-cropped sod of the steppe, upon which immense Siberian herds are exclusively nourished. This was no longer a boundless steppe, but a sort of immense copse of arborescent vegetation.
The grass was there about five or six feet in height, and had made room for swamp-plants, to which the dampness of the place, assisted by the heat of summer, had given giant proportions. These were principally canes and rushes, which formed a tangled network, an impenetrable undergrowth, sprinkled everywhere with a thousand flowers remarkable for the brightness of their colour, among which shone the lily and the iris, whose perfume mingled with the tepid exudations which arose from the soil.
Michael Strogoff, galloping amongst this undergrowth of cane, was no longer visible from the swamps which bordered the road. The tall grass rose above him, and his track was indicated only by the flight of innumerable aquatic birds, which rose from the side of the road and dispersed into the air in screaming flocks.
The way, however, was clearly traceable. Now it would lie straight between the dense thicket of marsh-plants; again it would follow the winding shores of vast pools, some of which, several versts in length and breadth, deserve the name of lakes. In other localities the stagnant waters through which the road lay had been avoided, not by bridges, but by tottering platforms ballasted with thick layers of clay, and whose joists shook like a too weak plank thrown across an abyss. Some of these platforms extended over a space of two or three hundred feet, and on more than one occasion travellers by tarantass, especially ladies, have when crossing on them experienced a nausea similar to sea-sickness.
Michael Strogoff, whether the soil beneath his feet was solid or whether it sank under him, galloped on without halt, leaping the space between the rotten joists; but however fast they travelled the horse and the horseman were unable to escape from the sting of the two-winged insects which infest this marshy country.
Travellers who are obliged to cross the Baraba during the summer take care to provide themselves with masks of horse-hair, to which is attached a coat of mail of very fine wire, which covers their shoulders. Notwithstanding these precautions, there are few who come out of these marshes without having their faces, necks, and hands covered with red spots. The atmosphere there seems to bristle with fine needles, and one would almost say that a knight’s armour would not protect him against the darts of these dipterals. It is a dreary region, which man dearly disputes with tipulœ, gnats, mosquitos, horse-flies, and millions of microscopic insects which are not visible to the naked eye; but, although they are not seen, they make themselves felt by their intolerable stinging, to which the most callous Siberian hunters have never been able to injure themselves.
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.
It required as good a horseman as Michael Strogoff not to be thrown by the plungings of his horse, and the sudden stops and bounds which he made to escape from the stings of his persecutors. Having become insensible, so to speak, to physical suffering, as though he had been under the influence of a permanent anæsthetic, possessed only with the one desire to arrive at his destination at whatever cost, he saw during this mad race only one thing—that the road flew rapidly behind him.
Who would have thought that this district of the Baraba, so unhealthy during the summer, could have afforded an asylum for human beings?
It was so, however. Several Siberian hamlets appeared from time to time among the giant canes. Men, women, children, and old men, clad in the skins of beasts, their faces covered with hardened blisters of skin, pastured their poor herds of sheep. In order to preserve the animals from the attack of the insects, they drove them to the leeward of fires of green wood, which were kept burning night and day, and the pungent smoke of which floated over the vast swamp.
When Michael Strogoff perceived that his horse, tired out, was on the point of succumbing, he halted at one of these wretched hamlets, and there, forgetting his own fatigue, he himself rubbed the wounds of the poor animal with hot grease according to the Siberian custom; then he gave him a good feed; and it was only after he had well groomed and provided for him that he thought of himself, and recruited his strength by a hasty meal of bread and meat and a glass of kwass. One hour afterwards, or at the most two, he resumed with all speed the interminable road to Irkutsk.
Thirty versts were thus traversed from Touroumoff, and on the 30th of July, at four o’clock in the afternoon, Michael Strogoff, insensible of every fatigue, arrived at Elamsk.
There it became necessary to give a night’s rest to his horse. The brave animal could no longer have continued the journey.
At Elamsk, as indeed elsewhere, there existed no means of transport,—for the same reasons as at the previous villages, neither carriages nor horses were to be had.
Elamsk, a little town which the Tartars had not yet visited, was almost entirely depopulated, for it could be easily invaded from the south, and with difficulty succoured from the north. Post-relays, police-stations, and the government-house had consequently been abandoned by order, and both the authorities and the inhabitants had retired to Kamsk, in the midst of the Baraba.
Michael Strogoff resigned himself therefore to pass the night at Elamsk, to give his horse twelve hours’ rest. He recalled the instructions which had been given to him at Moscow—to cross Siberia incognito, to arrive at Irkutsk, but not to sacrifice success to the rapidity of the journey; and consequently it was necessary that he should husband the sole means of transport which remained to him.
On the morrow, Michael Strogoff left Elamsk at the moment when the first Tartar scouts were signalled ten versts behind upon the road to the Baraba, and he plunged again into the swampy region. The road was level, which made it easy, but very tortuous, and therefore long. It was impossible, moreover, to leave it, and to strike a straight line across that impassable network of pools and bogs.
On the next day, the Ist of August, one hundred and twenty versts further, Michael Strogoff arrived at mid-day at the town of Spaskoë, and at two o’clock he halted at Pokrowskoë.
His horse, jaded since his departure from Elamsk, could not have taken a single step more.
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 seventy-five versts, he reached Kamsk.
The country had changed. This little village of Kamsk lies, like an island, habitable and healthy, in the midst of the uninhabitable district. It is situated in the very centre of the Baraba. The emigration caused by the Tartar invasion had not yet depopulated this little town of Kamsk. Its inhabitants probably fancied themselves safe in the centre of the Baraba, whence at least they thought they would have time to flee if they were directly menaced.
Michael Strogoff, although exceedingly anxious for news, could ascertain nothing at this place. It would have been rather to him that the Governor would have addressed himself had he known who the pretended merchant of Irkutsk really was. Kamsk, in fact, by its very situation seemed to be outside the Siberian world and the grave events which troubled it.
Besides, Michael Strogoff showed him
self little, if at all. To be unperceived was not now enough for him: he would have wished to be invisible. The experience of the past made him more and more circumspect in the present and the future. Therefore he secluded himself, and not caring to traverse the streets of the village, he would not even leave the inn at which he had halted.
Michael Strogoff could have found a carriage at Kamsk, and replaced by a more convenient conveyance the horse which had borne him from Omsk. But, after mature reflection, he feared that the purchase of a tarantass would have attracted attention to him, and although he might well have passed through the line now occupied by the Tartars which divided Siberia, almost following the valley of the Irtych, he would not risk the chance of awakening suspicion.
Moreover, for the difficult passage of the Baraba, for the flight across the marsh, in a case where some danger might threaten him too directly, to escape horsemen sent in pursuit, to throw himself if necessary even into the densest cane-brake, a horse would no doubt be of more value than a carriage. Later on, beyond Tomsk, or even Krasnoiarsk, in some important centre of Western Siberia, Michael Strogoff would see what it might be best to do.
As for his horse, he did not even think of exchanging him for another animal. He had become accustomed to this brave creature. He knew to what extent he could rely upon him. In buying him at Omsk he had been lucky, and in taking him to the postmaster the generous mujik had rendered him a great service. Besides, if Michael Strogoff had already become attached to his horse, the horse himself seemed to become inured, by degrees, to the fatigue of such a journey, and provided that he got several hours of repose daily, his rider might hope that he would carry him beyond the invaded provinces.
So, during the evening and night of the 2nd of August, Michael Strogoff remained confined to his inn, at the entrance of the town; which was little frequented and out of the way of the importunate and curious.
Exhausted with fatigue, he went to bed after having seen that his horse lacked nothing; but his sleep was broken. What he had seen since his departure from Moscow showed him the importance of his mission. The rising was an extremely serious one, and the treachery of Ogareff made it still more formidable. And when his eyes fell upon the letter bearing upon it the authority of the imperial seal—the letter which, no doubt, contained the remedy for so many evils, the safety of all this war-ravaged country—Michael Strogoff felt within himself a fierce desire to dash on across the steppe, to accomplish the distance which separated him from Irkutsk as the crow would fly it, to be an eagle that he might overtop all obstacles, to be a hurricane that he might sweep through the air at a hundred versts an hour, and to be at last face to face with the Grand Duke, and to exclaim: “Your highness, from his Majesty the Czar!”
On the next morning at six o’clock, Michael Strogoff started off again, with the intention of making in that day the eighty versts which separated Kamsk from the hamlet of Oubinsk. Beyond a radius of twenty versts he came again upon the swampy Baraba which in many places was without any appearance of dry land, the soil being often covered by a foot of water. The road was therefore found with difficulty, but thanks to his extreme prudence this part of the journey was signalised by no incident whatever.
Michael Strogoff having arrived at Oubinsk gave his horse a whole night’s rest, for he wished on the next day to accomplish the hundred versts which lie between Oubinsk and Ikoulskoë without halting. He started therefore at dawn; but unfortunately the soil of the Baraba in this neighbourhood was more detestable than ever.
In fact, between Oubinsk and Kamakore the very heavy rains of some previous weeks were retained by this shallow depression as in a water-tight bowl. There was, for a long distance, no break in the succession of swamps, pools, and lakes. One of these lakes—large enough to warrant its geographical nomenclature—Tchang, Chinese in name, had to be coasted for more than twenty versts, and this with the greatest difficulty. Hence certain delays occurred, which all the impatience of Michael Strogoff could not avoid. He had been well advised in not taking a carriage at Kamsk, for his horse passed places which would have been impracticable for a conveyance on wheels.
In the evening, at nine o’clock, Michael Strogoff arrived at Ikoulskoë, and halted there over-night. In this remote village of the Baraba news of the war was utterly wanting. 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. He would find a practicable road when he had traversed the one hundred and twenty-five versts which still separated him from Kolyvan.
Arrived at that important town he would then be about the same distance from Tomsk. He would then be guided by circumstances, and very probably he would decide to go around that town, which, if the news were true, was occupied by Feofar-Khan.
But if the small towns of Ikoulskoë and Karguinsk, which he passed on the next day, were comparatively quiet, owing to their position in the Baraba, where the Tartar columns would have manœuvred with difficulty, was it not to be dreaded that, upon the right banks of the Obi, Michael Strogoff would have much more to fear from man? It was probable. However, should it become necessary, he would not hesitate to abandon the beaten path to Irkutsk. To journey then across the steppe he would, no doubt, run the risk of finding himself without supplies. There would be, in fact, no longer a well-marked road. Still, there must be no hesitation.
Finally, towards half-past three in the afternoon, after having passed the station of Kargatsk, Michael Strogoff left the last depressions of the Baraba, and the dry and hard soil of Siberia rang out once more beneath his horse’s hoofs.
He had left Moscow on the 15th of July. Therefore on this day, the 5th of August, including more than seventy hours lost on the banks of the Irtych, twenty days had gone by since his departure.
Fifteen hundred versts still separated him from Irkutsk.
CHAPTER XVI.
A FINAL EFFORT.
MICHAEL’S fear of meeting the Tartars in the plains beyond the Baraba was by no means ungrounded. The fields, trodden down by horses’ hoofs, afforded but too clear evidence that their hordes had passed that way; the same, indeed, might be said of these barbarians that has been said of the Turks, “Where the Turk goes, no grass grows.”
Michael saw at once that in traversing this country the greatest precaution was necessary. Wreaths of smoke curling upwards on the horizon showed that huts and hamlets were still burning. Had these been fired by the advance guard, or had the Emir’s army already advanced beyond the boundaries of the province? Was Feofar-Khan himself in the government of Yeniseisk? Michael could settle on no line of action until these questions were answered. Was the country so deserted that he could not discover a single Siberian to enlighten him on these points?
Michael rode on for two versts without meeting a human being on the road. He looked carefully on both sides for some house which had not been deserted. Every one was tenantless.
One hut, however, which he could just see between the trees, was still smoking. As he approached he perceived, at some yards from the ruins of the building, an old man surrounded by weeping children. A woman still young, evidently his daughter and the mother of the poor children, kneeling on the ground, was gazing on the scene of desolation. She had at her breast a baby but a few months old; shortly she would have not even that nourishment to give it Ruin and desolation were all around!
Michael approached the old man.
“Will you answer me a few questions?” he asked.
“Speak,” replied the old man.
“Have the Tartars passed this way?”
“Yes; for my house is in flames.”
“Was it an army or a detachment?”
“An army; for, as far as your eye can reach, our fields are laid waste.”
“C
ommanded by the Emir?”
“By the Emir; for the Obi’s waters are red.”
“Has Feofar-Khan entered Tomsk?”
“He has.”
“Do you know whether the Tartars have entered Kolyvan?”
“No; for Kolyvan does not yet burn.”
“Thanks, friend. Can I do anything for you and yours?”
“Nothing.”
“Good-bye.”
“Farewell.”
And Michael, having presented five-and-twenty roubles to the unfortunate woman, who had not even strength to thank him, putting spurs to his horse, once more set forward.
One thing he knew: he must not pass through Tomsk. To go to Kolyvan, which the Tartars had not yet reached, was possible. Yes, that is what he must do; there he must prepare himself for another long stage. There was nothing for it but, having crossed the Obi, to take the Irkutsk road and avoid Tomsk.
This new route decided on, Michael must not delay an instant Nor did he, but, putting his horse into a steady gallop, he took the road towards the left bank of the Obi, which was still forty versts distant. Would there be a ferry-boat there, or should he, finding that the Tartars had destroyed all the boats on the river, be obliged to swim across?
As to his horse, it was by this time pretty well worn out, and Michael intended to make it perform this stage only, and then to exchange it for a fresh one at Kolyvan. Kolyvan would be like a fresh starting-point, for on leaving that town his journey would take a new form. So long as he traversed a devastated country the difficulties must be very great; but if, having avoided Tomsk, he could resume the road to Irkutsk across the province of Yeniseisk, which was not yet laid waste, he would finish his journey in a few days.
Night came on, bringing with it refreshing coolness after the heat of the day. At midnight the steppe was profoundly dark. The wind having completely fallen at sunset, left the air perfectly still. The sound of the horse’s hoofs alone was heard on the road, except when, every now and then, its master spoke a few encouraging words. In such darkness as this great care was necessary lest he should leave the road, bordered by pools and streams, tributaries of the Obi.