“I should have been still more wrong had I stayed.”
“Hold up, my pigeons!” cried the iemschik; it was his business to obey, not to question.
Just then a distant noise was heard, shrill whistling through the atmosphere, so calm a minute before. By the light of a dazzling flash, almost immediately followed by a tremendous clap of thunder, Michael could see huge pines on a high peak, bending before the blast. The wind was unchained, but as yet it was the upper air alone which was disturbed. Successive crashes showed that many of the old and lightly-rooted trees had been unable to resist the burst of the hurricane. An avalanche of shattered trunks swept across the road and dashed over the precipice on the left, two hundred feet in front of the tarantass.
The horses stopped short.
“Get up, my pretty doves!” cried the iemschik, adding the cracking of his whip to the rumbling of the thunder.
Michael took Nadia’s hand.
“Are you asleep, sister?” he asked.
“No brother.”
“Be ready for anything; here comes the storm!”
“I am ready.”
Michael Strogoff had only just time to draw the leathern curtains, when the storm was upon them.
The iemschik leapt from his seat and seized his horses’ heads, for terrible danger threatened the whole party.
The tarantass was at a standstill at a turning of the road, down which swept the hurricane; it was absolutely necessary to hold the animals’ heads to the wind, for if the carriage was taken broadside it must infallibly capsize and be dashed over the precipice. The frightened horses reared, and their driver could not manage to quiet them. His friendly expressions had been succeeded by the most insulting epithets. Nothing was of any use. The unfortunate animals, blinded by the lightning, terrified by the incessant peals of thunder, rattling like artillery among the rocks, threatened every instant to break their traces and escape. The iemschik had no longer any control over his team.
At that moment Michael Strogoff threw himself from the tarantass and rushed to his assistance. Endowed with more than common strength, he managed, though not without difficulty, to master the horses.
The storm now raged with redoubled fury. A perfect avalanche of stones and trunks of trees began to roll down the slope above them.
“We cannot stop here,” said Michael.
“We cannot stop anywhere,” returned the iemschik, all his energies apparently overcome by terror. “The storm will soon send us to the bottom of the mountain, and that by the shortest way.”
“Take you that horse, coward,” returned Michael, “I’ll look after this one.”
A fresh burst of the storm interrupted him. The driver and he were obliged to crouch upon the ground to avoid being blown down. But the carriage, notwithstanding their efforts and those of the horses, was gradually moving back, and had it not been stopped by the trunk of a tree, it would have been forced over the edge of the precipice.
“Do not be afraid, Nadia!” cried Michael Strogoff.
“I’m not afraid,” replied the young Livonian, her voice not betraying the slightest emotion.
The rumbling of the thunder ceased for an instant, the terrible blast had swept past into the gorge below.
“Will you go back?” said the iemschik.
“No, we must go on! Once past this turning, we shall have the shelter of the slope.”
“But the horses won’t move!”
“Do as I do, and drag them on.”
“The storm will come back!”
“Do you mean to obey?”
“Do you order it?”
“The Father orders it!” answered Michael, for the first time invoking the all-powerful name of the Emperor.
“Forward, my swallows!” cried the iemschik, seizing one horse, while Michael did the same to the other.
Thus urged, the horses began to struggle onward. They could no longer rear, and the middle horse not being hampered by the others, could keep in the centre of the road. It was with the greatest difficulty that either men or beasts could stand against the wind, and for every three steps they took in advance, they lost one, and even two, by being forced backwards. They slipped, they fell, they got up again. The vehicle ran a great risk of being smashed. If the hood had not been securely fastened, it would have been blown away long before this. Michael Strogoff and the iemschik took more than two hours in getting up this bit of road, only half a verst in length, so directly exposed was it to the lashing of the storm. The danger there was not only from the wind which battered against the travellers, but from the avalanche of stones and broken trunks which were hurtling through the air above their heads.
Suddenly, during a flash of lightning, one of these masses was seen crashing and rolling down the mountain towards the tarantass.
The iemschik uttered a cry.
Michael Strogoff in vain brought his whip down on the team, they refused to move.
But a few feet farther on, and the mass would pass behind them!
Michael saw the tarantass struck, his companion crushed; he saw there was no time to drag her from the vehicle.
Then, possessed in this hour of peril with superhuman strength, he threw himself behind it, and planting his feet on the ground, by main force placed it out of danger.
The enormous mass as it passed grazed his chest, taking away his breath as though it had been a cannon-ball, then crushing to powder the flints on the road, it bounded into the abyss below.
“Oh, brother!” cried Nadia, who had seen it all by the light of the flashes.
“Nadia!” replied Michael, “fear nothing!”
“It is not on my own account that I fear!”
“God is with us, sister!”
“With me truly, brother, since He has sent thee in my way!” murmured the young girl.
The impetus the tarantass had received was not to be lost, and the tired horses once more moved forward. Dragged, so to speak, by Michael and the iemschik, they toiled on towards a narrow pass, lying north and south, where they would be protected from the direct sweep of the tempest. At one end a huge rock jutted out, round the summit of which whirled an eddy. Behind the shelter of the rock there was a comparative calm; yet once within the circumference of the cyclone, neither man nor beast could resist its power.
Indeed, some firs which towered above this protection were in a trice shorn of their tops, as though a gigantic scythe had swept across them.
The storm was now at its height. The lightning filled the defile, and the thunder-claps had become one continued peal. The ground, struck by the concussion, trembled as though the whole Ural chain was shaken to its foundations.
Happily, the tarantass could be so placed that the storm might strike it obliquely. But the counter-currents, directed towards it by the slope, could not be so well avoided, and so violent were they that every instant it seemed as though it would be dashed to pieces against the rocks.
Nadia was obliged to leave her seat, and Michael, by the light of one of the lanterns, discovered an excavation bearing the marks of a miner’s pick, where the young girl could rest in safety until they were once more ready to make a start.
Just then—it was one o’clock in the morning—the rain began to fall in torrents, and this in addition to the wind made the storm truly frightful, without, however, extinguishing the lightning. To continue the journey at present was utterly impossible. Besides, having reached this pass, they had only to descend the slopes of the Ural Mountains, and to descend now, with the road torn up by a thousand mountain torrents, in these eddies of wind and rain, was utter madness.
“To wait is indeed serious,” said Michael, “but it must certainly be done, to avoid still longer detentions. The very violence of the storm makes me hope that it will not last long. About three o’clock the day will begin to break, and the descent, which we cannot risk in the dark, we shall be able, if not with ease, at least without such danger, to attempt after sunrise.”
“Let us wait,
brother,” replied Nadia; “but if you delay, let it not be to spare me fatigue or danger.”
“Nadia, I know that you are ready to brave everything, but, in exposing both of us, I risk more than my life, more than yours, I am not fulfilling my task, that duty which before everything else I must accomplish.”
“A duty!” murmured Nadia.
Just then a bright flash lit up the sky, and seemed, so to speak, to volatilise the rain. Then a loud clap followed. The air was filled with a sulphurous suffocating vapour, and a clump of huge pines, struck by the electric fluid, scarcely twenty feet from the tarantass, flared up like a gigantic torch.
The iemschik was struck to the ground by a counter-shock, but, regaining his feet, found himself happily unhurt.
Just as the last growlings of the thunder were lost in the recesses of the mountain, Michael felt Nadia’s hand pressing his, and he heard her whisper these words in his ear:
“Cries, brother! Listen!”
CHAPTER XI.
TRAVELLERS IN DISTRESS.
DURING the momentary lull which followed, shouts could be distinctly heard from a person on the road farther on, and at no great distance from the tarantass. It was an earnest appeal, evidently from some traveller in distress.
Michael listened attentively.
The iemschik also listened, but shook his head, as though he thought it impossible to render any assistance.
“They are travellers calling for help,” cried Nadia.
“They must expect nothing from us,” replied the iemschik.
“Why not?” cried Michael. “Ought not we to do for them what they would do for us under similar circumstances?”
“Surely you will not expose the carriage and the horses!”
“I will go on foot,” replied Michael, interrupting the iemschik.
“I will go, too, brother,” said the young girl.
“No, remain here, Nadia. The iemschik will stay with you. I do not wish to leave him alone.”
“I will stay,” replied Nadia.
“Whatever happens, do not leave this spot.”
“You will find me where I now am.”
Michael pressed her hand, and, turning the corner of the slope, disappeared in the darkness.
“Your brother is wrong,” said the iemschik.
“He is right,” replied Nadia simply.
Meanwhile Michael Strogoff strode rapidly on. If he was in a great hurry to aid the travellers, he was also very anxious to know who it was that had not been hindered from starting by the storm, for he had no doubt that the cries came from the telga, which had so long preceded the tarantass.
The rain had stopped, but the storm was raging with redoubled fury. The shouts, borne on the air, became more and more distinct. Nothing was to be seen of the pass in which Nadia had remained. The road wound along, and the flashes showed only the slope above it. The squalls, checked by the corners and turns of the road, formed eddies highly dangerous, to pass which, without being taken off his legs, Michael had to use his utmost strength.
He soon perceived that the travellers whose shouts he had heard were at no great distance. Even then, on account of the darkness, Michael could not see them, yet he heard distinctly their words.
This is what he heard, and what caused him some surprise:
“Are you coming back, blockhead?”
“You shall have a taste of the knout at the next stage.”
“Do you hear, you devil’s postillion! Hullo! Below there!”
“This is how a carriage takes you in this country!”
“Yes, this is what you call a telga!”
“Oh, that abominable driver! He goes on and does not appear to have discovered that he has left us behind!”
“To deceive me, too! Me, an honourable Englishman! I will make a complaint at the chancellor’s office and have the fellow hanged.”
This was said in a very angry tone, but Michael heard the speaker suddenly interrupted by a burst of laughter from his companion, who exclaimed:
“Well! This is a good joke, I must say.”
“You venture to laugh!” said the Briton angrily.
“Certainly, my dear confrère, and that most heartily. Ton my word it is too good, I never saw anything to come up to it”
Just then a crashing clap of thunder re-echoed through the defile, and then died away among the distant peaks. When the sound of the last growl had ceased, the merry voice went on:
“Yes, it undoubtedly is a good joke. This machine certainly never came from France.”
“Nor from England,” replied the other.
On the road, by the light of the flashes, Michael saw, twenty yards from him, two travellers, seated side by side in a most peculiar vehicle, the wheels of which were deeply imbedded in the ruts formed in the road.
He approached them, the one grinning from ear to ear, and the other gloomily contemplating his situation, and recognized them as the two reporters who had been his companions on board the Caucasus from Nijni-Novgorod to Perm.
“Good morning to you, sir,” cried the Frenchman. “Delighted to see you here. Let me introduce you to my intimate enemy, Mr. Blount.”
The English reporter bowed, and was about to introduce in his turn his companion, Alcide Jolivet, in accordance with the rules of society, when Michael interrupted him:
“Perfectly unnecessary, sir; we already know each other, for we travelled together on the Volga.”
“Ah, yes! Exactly so! Mr.——”
“Nicholas Korpanoff, merchant, of Irkutsk,” replied Michael. “But may I know what has happened which, though a misfortune to your companion, amuses you so much?”
“Certainly, Mr. Korpanoff,” replied Alcide. “Fancy! our driver has gone off with the front part of this confounded carriage, and left us quietly seated in the back part! So here we are in the worse half of a telga; no driver, no horses. Is it not a joke?”
“No joke at all,” said the Englishman.
“Indeed it is, my dear fellow. You do not know how to look at the bright side of things.”
“How, pray, are we to go on with our journey?” asked Harry Blount.
“That is the easiest thing in the world,” replied Alcide. “Go and harness yourself to what remains of our cart; I will take the reins, and call you my little pigeon, like a true iemschik, and you will trot off like a real post-horse.”
“Mr. Jolivet,” replied the Englishman, “this joking is going too far, it passes all limits and——”
“Now do be quiet, my dear sir. When you are done up, I will take your place; and call me a broken-winded snail and faint-hearted tortoise if I don’t take you over the ground at a rattling pace.”
Alcide said all this with such perfect good-humour that Michael could not help smiling.
“Gentlemen,” said he, “here is a better plan. We have now reached the highest ridge of the Ural chain, and thus have merely to descend the slopes of the mountain. My carriage is close by, only two hundred yards behind. I will lend you one of my horses, harness it to the remains of the telga, and to-morrow, if no accident befalls us, we will arrive together at Ekaterenburg”
“That, Mr. Korpanoff,” said Alcide, “is indeed a generous proposal.”
“Indeed, sir,” replied Michael, “I would willingly offer you places in my tarantass, but it will only hold two, and my sister and I already fill it.”
“Really, sir,” answered Alcide, “with your horse and our demi-telga my companion and I will go to the world’s end.”
“Sir,” said Harry Blount, “we most willingly accept your kind offer. And, as to that iemschik——”
“Oh! I assure you that you are not the first travellers who have met with a similar misfortune,” replied Michael.
“But why should not our driver come back? He knows perfectly well that he has left us behind, wretch that he is!”
“He! He never suspected such a thing.”
“What! The fellow not know that he was leaving the better half
of his telga behind?”
“Not a bit, and in all good faith is driving the fore part into Ekaterenburg.”
“Did I not tell you that it was a good joke, confrère?” cried Alcide.
“Then, gentlemen, if you will follow me,” said Michael, “we will return to my carriage, and——”
“But the telga,” observed the Englisman.
“There is not the slightest fear that it will fly away, my dear Blount!” exclaimed Alcide; “it has taken such good root in the ground, that if it were left here until next spring it would begin to bud.”
“Come then, gentlemen,” said Michael Strogoff, “and we will bring up the tarantass.”
The Frenchman and the Englishman, descending from their seats, no longer the hinder one, since the front had taken its departure, followed Michael.
Walking along, Alcide Jolivet chattered away as usual, with his invariable good-humour.
“Faith, Mr. Korpanoff,” said he to Michael, “you have indeed got us out of a bad scrape.”
“I have only done, sir,” replied Michael, “what any one would have done in my place. If travellers did not help one another, there might as well be no roads at all.”
“Well, sir, you have done us a good turn, and if you are going farther in these steppes we may possibly meet again, and——”
Alcide Jolivet did not put any direct question to Michael as to where he was going, but the latter, not wishing it to be suspected that he had anything to conceal, at once replied:
“I am bound for Omsk, gentlemen.”
“Mr. Blount and I,” replied Alcide, “go where danger is certainly to be found, and without doubt news also.”
“To the invaded provinces?” asked Michael with some earnestness.
“Exactly so, Mr. Korpanoff; and we may possibly meet there.”
“Indeed, sir,” replied Michael, “I have little love for cannon-balls or lance points, and am by nature too great a lover of peace to venture where fighting is going on.”
“I am sorry, sir, extremely sorry; we must only regret that we shall separate so soon! But on leaving Ekaterenburg it may be our fortunate fate to travel together, if only for a few days?”