Since my son has not told you his secret, I must keep it.
Forgive me, Nadia; I can never repay what you have done for me.”
“Mother, I ask you nothing,” replied Nadia.
All was thus explained to the old Siberian, all, even the conduct of her son with regard to herself in the inn at Omsk.
There was no doubt that the young girl’s companion was Michael Strogoff, and that a secret mission in the invaded country obliged him to conceal his quality of the Czar’s courier.
“Ah, my brave boy!” thought Marfa.
“No, I will not betray you, and tortures shall not wrest from me the avowal that it was you whom I saw at Omsk.”
Marfa could with a word have paid Nadia for all her devotion to her. She could have told her that her companion, Nicholas Korpanoff, or rather Michael Strogoff, had not perished in the waters of the Irtych, since it was some days after that incident that she had met him, that she had spoken to him.
But she restrained herself, she was silent, and contented herself with saying,
“Hope, my child!
Misfortune will not overwhelm you.
You will see your father again; I feel it; and perhaps he who gave you the name of sister is not dead.
God cannot have allowed your brave companion to perish.
Hope, my child, hope!
Do as I do.
The mourning which I wear is not yet for my son.”
CHAPTER III BLOW FOR BLOW
SUCH were now the relative situations of Marfa Strogoff and Nadia.
All was understood by the old Siberian, and though the young girl was ignorant that her much-regretted companion still lived, she at least knew his relationship to her whom she had made her mother; and she thanked God for having given her the joy of taking the place of the son whom the prisoner had lost.
But what neither of them could know was that Michael, having been captured at Kolyvan, was in the same convoy and was on his way to Tomsk with them.
The prisoners brought by Ivan Ogareff had been added to those already kept by the Emir in the Tartar camp.
These unfortunate people, consisting of Russians, Siberians, soldiers and civilians, numbered some thousands, and formed a column which extended over several versts.
Some among them being considered dangerous were handcuffed and fastened to a long chain.
There were, too, women and children, many of the latter suspended to the pommels of the saddles, while the former were dragged mercilessly along the road on foot, or driven forward as if they were animals.
The horsemen compelled them to maintain a certain order, and there were no laggards with the exception of those who fell never to rise again.
In consequence of this arrangement, Michael Strogoff, marching in the first ranks of those who had left the Tartar camp—that is to say, among the Kolyvan prisoners—was unable to mingle with the prisoners who had arrived after him from Omsk.
He had therefore no suspicion that his mother and Nadia were present in the convoy, nor did they suppose that he was among those in front.
This journey from the camp to Tomsk, performed under the lashes and spear-points of the soldiers, proved fatal to many, and terrible to all.
The prisoners traveled across the steppe, over a road made still more dusty by the passage of the Emir and his vanguard.
Orders had been given to march rapidly.
The short halts were rare.
The hundred miles under a burning sky seemed interminable, though they were performed as rapidly as possible.
The country, which extends from the right of the Obi to the base of the spur detached from the Sayanok Mountains, is very sterile.
Only a few stunted and burnt-up shrubs here and there break the monotony of the immense plain.
There was no cultivation, for there was no water; and it was water that the prisoners, parched by their painful march, most needed.
To find a stream they must have diverged fifty versts eastward, to the very foot of the mountains.
There flows the Tom, a little affluent of the Obi, which passes near Tomsk before losing itself in one of the great northern arteries.
There water would have been abundant, the steppe less arid, the heat less severe.
But the strictest orders had been given to the commanders of the convoy to reach Tomsk by the shortest way, for the Emir was much afraid of being taken in the flank and cut off by some Russian column descending from the northern provinces.
It is useless to dwell upon the sufferings of the unhappy prisoners.
Many hundreds fell on the steppe, where their bodies would lie until winter, when the wolves would devour the remnants of their bones.
As Nadia helped the old Siberian, so in the same way did Michael render to his more feeble companions in misfortune such services as his situation allowed.
He encouraged some, supported others, going to and fro, until a prick from a soldier’s lance obliged him to resume the place which had been assigned him in the ranks.
Why did he not endeavor to escape?
The reason was that he had now quite determined not to venture until the steppe was safe for him.
He was resolved in his idea of going as far as Tomsk “at the Emir’s expense,” and indeed he was right.
As he observed the numerous detachments which scoured the plain on the convoy’s flanks, now to the south, now to the north, it was evident that before he could have gone two versts he must have been recaptured.
The Tartar horsemen swarmed—it actually appeared as if they sprang from the earth—like insects which a thunderstorm brings to the surface of the ground.
Flight under these conditions would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible.
The soldiers of the escort displayed excessive vigilance, for they would have paid for the slightest carelessness with their heads.