And the two crouched on the piece of ice, which their weight detached from the floe.
It began to drift.
The river widened, the way was open.
Michael and Nadia heard the shots, the cries of distress, the yells of the Tartars. Then, little by little, the sounds of agony and of ferocious joy grew faint in the distance.
“Our poor companions!” murmured Nadia.
For half an hour the current hurried along the block of ice which bore Michael and Nadia.
They feared every moment that it would give way beneath them.
Swept along in the middle of the current, it was unnecessary to give it an oblique direction until they drew near the quays of Irkutsk.
Michael, his teeth tight set, his ear on the strain, did not utter a word.
Never had he been so near his object.
He felt that he was about to attain it!
Towards two in the morning a double row of lights glittered on the dark horizon in which were confounded the two banks of the Angara.
On the right hand were the lights of Irkutsk; on the left, the fires of the Tartar camp.
Michael Strogoff was not more than half a verst from the town.
“At last!” he murmured.
But suddenly Nadia uttered a cry.
At the cry Michael stood up on the ice, which was wavering.
His hand was extended up the Angara.
His face, on which a bluish light cast a peculiar hue, became almost fearful to look at, and then, as if his eyes had been opened to the bright blaze spreading across the river,
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “then Heaven itself is against us!”
CHAPTER XII IRKUTSK
IRKUTSK, the capital of Eastern Siberia, is a populous town, containing, in ordinary times, thirty thousand inhabitants.
On the right side of the Angara rises a hill, on which are built numerous churches, a lofty cathedral, and dwellings disposed in picturesque disorder.
Seen at a distance, from the top of the mountain which rises at about twenty versts off along the Siberian highroad, this town, with its cupolas, its bell-towers, its steeples slender as minarets, its domes like pot-bellied Chinese jars, presents something of an oriental aspect.
But this similarity vanishes as the traveler enters.
The town, half Byzantine, half Chinese, becomes European as soon as he sees its macadamized roads, bordered with pavements, traversed by canals, planted with gigantic birches, its houses of brick and wood, some of which have several stories, the numerous equipages which drive along, not only tarantasses but broughams and coaches; lastly, its numerous inhabitants far advanced in civilization, to whom the latest Paris fashions are not unknown.
Being the refuge for all the Siberians of the province, Irkutsk was at this time very full.
Stores of every kind had been collected in abundance.
Irkutsk is the emporium of the innumerable kinds of merchandise which are exchanged between China, Central Asia, and Europe.
The authorities had therefore no fear with regard to admitting the peasants of the valley of the Angara, and leaving a desert between the invaders and the town.
Irkutsk is the residence of the governor-general of Eastern Siberia.
Below him acts a civil governor, in whose hands is the administration of the province; a head of police, who has much to do in a town where exiles abound; and, lastly, a mayor, chief of the merchants, and a person of some importance, from his immense fortune and the influence which he exercises over the people.
The garrison of Irkutsk was at that time composed of an infantry regiment of Cossacks, consisting of two thousand men, and a body of police wearing helmets and blue uniforms laced with silver.
Besides, as has been said, in consequence of the events which had occurred, the brother of the Czar had been shut up in the town since the beginning of the invasion.
A journey of political importance had taken the Grand Duke to these distant provinces of Central Asia.
After passing through the principal Siberian cities, the Grand Duke, who traveled en militaire rather than en prince, without any parade, accompanied by his officers, and escorted by a regiment of Cossacks, arrived in the Trans-Baikalcine provinces.
Nikolaevsk, the last Russian town situated on the shore of the Sea of Okhotsk, had been honored by a visit from him.
Arrived on the confines of the immense Muscovite Empire, the Grand Duke was returning towards Irkutsk, from which place he intended to retake the road to Moscow, when, sudden as a thunder clap, came the news of the invasion.
He hastened to the capital, but only reached it just before communication with Russia had been interrupted.
There was time to receive only a few telegrams from St. Petersburg and Moscow, and with difficulty to answer them before the wire was cut.
Irkutsk was isolated from the rest of the world.
The Grand Duke had now only to prepare for resistance, and this he did with that determination and coolness of which, under other circumstances, he had given incontestable proofs.
The news of the taking of Ichim, Omsk, and Tomsk, successively reached Irkutsk.
It was necessary at any price to save the capital of Siberia.
Reinforcements could not be expected for some time.
The few troops scattered about in the provinces of Siberia could not arrive in sufficiently large numbers to arrest the progress of the Tartar columns.
Since therefore it was impossible for Irkutsk to escape attack, the most important thing to be done was to put the town in a state to sustain a siege of some duration.
The preparations were begun on the day Tomsk fell into the hands of the Tartars.
At the same time with this last news, the Grand Duke heard that the Emir of Bokhara and the allied Khans were directing the invasion in person, but what he did not know was, that the lieutenant of these barbarous chiefs was Ivan Ogareff, a Russian officer whom he had himself reduced to the ranks, but with whose person he was not acquainted.
First of all, as we have seen, the inhabitants of the province of Irkutsk were compelled to abandon the towns and villages.