Michael Strogoff; Or the Courier of the Czar: A Literary Classic

by Jules Verne

  Michael Strogoff, hidden in a group of prisoners, saw this man pass. He had a presentiment that some catastrophe was imminent; for Ivan Ogareff knew now that Marfa was the mother of Michael Strogoff, captain in the corps of the Czar’s couriers.

  Ivan Ogareff, having reached the centre of the camp, dismounted, and his escort cleared a large circle round him.

  Just then Sangarre approached him, and said,

  “I have no news for you, Ivan.”

  Ivan Ogareff’s only reply was to give an order to one of his officers.

  Then the ranks of prisoners were brutally hurried up by the soldiers. The unfortunate people, driven on with whips, or pushed on with the butt-ends of the lances, kept rising again in haste, and arranged themselves round the camp. A strong guard of soldiers, both foot and horse, drawn up behind, rendered escape impossible.

  Silence then ensued, and, on a sign from Ivan Ogareff, Sangarre advanced towards the group, in the midst of which stood Marfa.

  The old Siberian saw her companion. She knew what was going to happen. A scornful smile passed over her face. Then leaning towards Nadia, she said in a low tone,

  “You know me no longer, my daughter. Whatever may happen, and however hard this trial might be, not a word, not a sign. It concerns him, and not me.”

  At that moment Sangarre, having regarded her for an instant, put her hand on her shoulder.

  “What do you want with me?” said Marfa.

  “Come!” replied Sangarre.

  And, pushing the old Siberian before her, she took her before Ivan Ogareff, in the middle of the cleared ground.

  Michael cast down his eyes that their angry flashings might not appear.

  Marfa, standing before Ivan Ogareff, drew herself up, crossed her arms on her breast, and waited.

  “You are Marfa Strogoff?” asked Ogareff.

  “Yes,” replied the old Siberian calmly.

  “Do you retract what you said to me when, three days ago, I interrogated you at Omsk?”

  “No!”

  “Then you do not know that your son, Michael Strogoff, courier of the Czar, has passed through Omsk?”

  “I do not know it.”

  “And the man in whom you thought you recognised your son, was not he, was not he your son?”

  “He was not my son.”

  “And since then you have not seen him amongst the prisoners?”

  “No.”

  “And if he were pointed out, would you recognise him?”

  “No.”

  On this reply, which showed a determined resolution to acknowledge nothing, a murmur was heard amongst the crowd.

  Ogareff could not restrain a threatening gesture.

  “Listen,” said he to Marfa, “your son is here, and you shall immediately point him out to me.”

  “No.”

  “All these men, taken at Omsk and Kolyvan, will defile before you; and if you do not show me Michael Strogoff, you shall receive as many blows of the knout as men shall have passed before you.”

  Ivan Ogareff saw that, whatever might be his threats, whatever might be the tortures to which he submitted her, the indomitable Siberian would not speak. To discover the courier of the Czar, he counted, then, not on her, but on Michael himself. He did not believe it possible that, when mother and son were in each other’s presence, some involuntary movement would not betray him. Of course, had he only wished to seize the imperial letter, he would simply have given orders to search all the prisoners; but Michael might have destroyed the letter, having learnt its contents; and if he were not recognised, if he were to reach Irkutsk, all Ivan Ogareff’s plans would be baffled. It was thus not only the letter which the traitor must have, but the bearer himself.

  Nadia had heard all, and she now knew who was Michael Strogoff, and why he had wished to cross, without being recognised, the invaded provinces of Siberia.

  On an order from Ivan Ogareff the prisoners defiled, one by one, past Marfa, who remained immovable as a statue, and whose face expressed only perfect indifference.

  Her son was among the last. When in his turn he passed before his mother, Nadia shut her eyes that she might not see him.

  Michael was to all appearance unmoved, but the palm of his hand bled under his nails, which were pressed into them.

  Ivan Ogareff was baffled by mother and son.

  Sangarre, close to him, said one word only,

  “The knout!”

  “Yes,” cried Ogareff, who could no longer restrain himself; “the knout for this wretched old woman—the knout to the death!”

  A Tartar soldier bearing this terrible instrument of torture approached Marfa.

  The knout is composed of a certain number of leathern thongs, at the end of which are attached pieces of twisted iron wire. It is reckoned that a sentence to one hundred and twenty blows of this whip is equivalent to a sentence of death.

  Marfa knew it, but she knew also that no torture would make her speak, and that she was sacrificing her life.

  Marfa, seized by two soldiers, was forced on her knees on the ground. Her dress torn off left her back bare. A sabre was placed before her breast, at a few inches’ distance only. Directly she bent beneath her suffering, her breast was pierced by the sharp steel.

  The Tartar drew himself up.

  He waited.

  “Begin!” said Ogareff.

  The whip whistled through the air.

  But before it fell a powerful hand stopped the Tartar’s arm.

  Michael was there. He had leapt forward at this horrible scene. If at the relay at Ichim he had restrained himself when Ogareff’s whip had struck him, here before his mother, who was about to be struck, he could not master himself.

  Ivan Ogareff had succeeded.

  “Michael Strogoff!” cried he.

  Then advancing,

  “Ah, the man of Ichim?”

  “Himself!” said Michael.

  And raising the knout he struck Ogareff across the face.

  “Blow for blow!” said he.

  “Well repaid!” cried a voice, happily concealed by the tumult.

  Twenty soldiers threw themselves on Michael, and in another instant he would have been slain.

  But Ogareff, who on being struck had uttered a cry of rage and pain, stopped them.

  “This man is reserved for the Emir’s judgment,” said he. “Search him!”

  The letter with the imperial arms was found in Michael’s bosom; he had not had time to destroy it; it was handed to Ogareff.

  The voice which had pronounced the words, “Well repaid!” was that of no other than Alcide Jolivet. His companion and he staying at the camp of Zabediero were present at the scene.

  “Pardieu!” said he to Blount, “these are rough folk, these Northern people. Acknowledge that we owe our travelling companion a good turn. Korpanoff or Strogoff is worthy of it. Oh, that was fine retaliation for the little affair at Ichim.”

  “Yes, retaliation truly,” replied Blount; “but Strogoff is a dead man. I suspect that, for his own interest at all events, it would have been better had he not possessed quite so lively a recollection of the event.”

  “And let his mother perish under the knout?”

  “Do you think that either she or his sister will be a bit better off from this outbreak of his?”

  “I do not know or think anything except that I should have done much the same in his position,” replied Alcide. “What a scar the Colonel has received! Bah! One must boil over sometimes. We should have had water in our veins instead of blood had it been incumbent on us to be always and everywhere unmoved to wrath.”

  “A neat little incident for our journals,” observed Blount, “if only Ivan Ogareff would let us know the contents of that letter.”

  Ivan Ogareff, when he had stanched the blood which was trickling down his face, had broken the seal. He read and re-read the letter deliberately, as if he was determined to discover everything it contained.

  Then having ordered that Michael,
carefully bound and guarded, should be carried on to Tomsk with the other prisoners, he took command of the troops at Zabediero, and, amid the deafening noise of drums and trumpets, he marched towards the town where the Emir awaited him.

  CHAPTER IV.

  THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY.

  TOMSK, founded in 1604, nearly in the heart of the Siberian provinces, is one of the most important towns in Asiatic Russia. Tobolsk, situated above the sixtieth parallel; Irkutsk, built beyond the hundredth meridian,—have seen Tomsk increase at their expense.

  And yet Tomsk, as has been said, is not the capital of this important province. It is at Omsk that the Governor-General of the province and the official world reside. But Tomsk is the most considerable town of that territory, bounded by the Altai mountains, a range which extends to the Chinese frontier of the Khalkas country. Down the slopes of these mountains to the valley of the Tom, platina, gold, silver, copper, and auriferous-lead succeed each other. The country being rich, the town is so likewise, for it is in the centre of fruitful mines. In the luxury of its houses, its arrangements, and its equipages, it might rival the greatest European capitals. It is a city of millionaires, enriched by the spade and pick-axe, and though it has not the honour of being the residence of the Czar’s representative, it can boast of including in the first rank of its notables the chief of the merchants of the town, the principal grantees of the imperial government’s mines.

  Formerly Tomsk was thought to be at the end of the world. It was a long journey for those who wished to go there. Now it is a mere walk where the road is not trampled over by the feet of invaders. Soon, even a railway will be constructed which will unite it with Perm, by crossing the Urals.

  Is Tomsk a pretty town? It must be confessed that travellers are not agreed on this point.

  Madame de Bourboulon, who stopped there a few days during her journey from Shanghai to Moscow, calls it an unpicturesque locality. According to her, it is but an insignificant town, with old houses of stone and brick, narrow streets—differing much from those which are usually found in great Siberian cities—dirty quarters, crowded chiefly with Tartars, and in which are swarms of quiet drunkards, “whose drunkenness even is apathetic as with all the nations of the North.”

  The traveller Henry Russel-Killough is positive in his admiration of Tomsk. Is this because he saw in midwinter, under its snowy mantle, the town which Madame de Bourboulon only visited during the summer? It is possible, and confirms the opinion that certain cold countries can only be appreciated in the cold season, as certain hot countries in the hot season.

  However this may be, Mr. Russel-Killough says positively that Tomsk is not only the prettiest town in Siberia, but is one of the prettiest towns in the world; its houses adorned with columns and peristyles, its wooden side-paths, its wide and regular streets, and its fifteen magnificent churches reflected in the waters of the Tom, larger than any river in France.

  The truth is something between these two opinions. Tomsk, which contains twenty-five thousand inhabitants, is picturesquely built on a long hill, the slope of which is somewhat steep.

  But even the prettiest town in the world would become ugly when occupied by invaders.

  Who would wish to admire it then? Defended by a few battalions of foot Cossacks, who resided permanently there, it had not been able to resist the attack of the Emir’s columns. A part of the population, of Tartar origin, had given a friendly reception to these hordes—Tartars, like themselves—and, for the time, Tomsk seemed to be no more Siberian than if it had been transported into the middle of the Khanats of Khokhand or Bokhara.

  At Tomsk the Emir was to receive his victorious troops. A festival, with songs and dances, followed by some noisy orgies, was to be given in their honour.

  The place chosen with Asiatic taste for this ceremony was a wide plateau situated on a part of the hill overlooking, at some hundred feet distance, the course of the Tom. The long perspective of elegant mansions and churches with their green cupolas, the windings of the river, the whole scene bathed in warm mists, appeared as it were in a frame formed by groups of pines and gigantic cedars.

  To the left of the plateau, a brilliant scene representing a palace of strange architecture—no doubt some specimen of the Bokharian monuments, half Moorish, half Tartar—had been temporarily erected on wide terraces. Above the palace and the minarets with which it bristled, among the high branches of the trees which shaded the plateau, tame storks, brought from Bokhara with the Tartar army, flew about in thousands.

  The terraces had been reserved for the Emir’s court, the Khans his allies, the great dignitaries of the Khanats, and the harems of each of these Turkestan sovereigns.

  Of these sultanas, who are for the most part merely slaves bought in the markets of Transcaucasia and Persia, some had their faces uncovered, and others wore a veil which concealed their features. All were dressed with great magnificence. Handsome pelisses with short sleeves allowed the bare arms to be seen, loaded with bracelets connected by chains of precious stones, and the little hands, the finger-nails being tinted with the juice of the henna. Some of these pelisses were made of silk, fine as a spider’s web; others of a flexible “aladja,” which is a narrow-striped texture of cotton; and at the least movement they made that rustle so agreeable in the ears of an Oriental. Under this first garment were brocaded petticoats, covering the silken trousers, which were fastened a little above neat boots, well shaped and embroidered with pearls. Some of the women whose features were not concealed by veils might have been admired for their long plaited hair, escaping from beneath their various coloured turbans, their splendid eyes, their magnificent teeth, their dazzling complexions, heightened by the blackness of the eyebrows, connected by a slight line, and the eyelashes touched with a little black-lead.

  At the foot of the terraces, gay with standards and pennons, watched the Emir’s own guards, armed with curved sabres, daggers in their belts, and lances six feet long in their hands. A few of these Tartars carried white sticks, others enormous halberds ornamented with tufts of gold and silver thread.

  All around over this vast plateau, as far as the steep slopes, the bases of which were washed by the Tom, was massed a crowd composed of all the native elements of Central Asia. Usbecks were there, with their tall caps of black sheepskin, their red beards, their grey eyes, and their “arkalouk,” a sort of tunic cut in the Tartar fashion. There thronged Turcomans, dressed in the national costume—wide trousers of a bright colour, with vest and mantle woven of camel’s-nair; red caps, conical or wide; high boots of Russian leather; and sabre knife hung at the waist by a thong. There, near their masters, appeared the Turcoman women, their hair lengthened by cords of goats’-hair; the chemisette open under the “djouba,” striped with blue, purple, and green; the legs laced with coloured bands, crossing each other to the leathern clog. There, too—as if all the Russian-Chinese frontier had risen at the Emir’s voice—might be seen Mandchoux, faces shaven, matted hair, long robes, sash confining the silken skirt at the waist, and oval caps of crimson satin, with black border and red fringe; and with them splendid specimens of the women of Mandchouria, wearing coquettish head-dresses of artificial flowers, kept in their places by gold pins and butterflies lightly laid on their black hair. Lastly, Mongols, Bokharians, Persians, and Turkestan-Chinese completed the crowd invited to the Tartar festival.

  Siberians alone were wanting in this reception of the invaders. Those who had not been able to fly were confined to their houses, in dread of the pillage which Feofar-Khan would perhaps order to worthily terminate this triumphal ceremony.

  At four o’clock the Emir made his entry into the square, greeted by a flourish of trumpets, the rolling sound of the big drums, salvoes of artillery and musketry.

  Feofar mounted his favourite horse, which carried on its head an aigrette of diamonds. The Emir still wore his uniform.

  He was accompanied by a numerous staff, and beside him walked the Khans of Khokhand and Koundouge and the grand dignitarie
s of the Khanats.

  At the same moment appeared on the terrace the chief of Feofar’s wives, the queen, if this title may be given to the sultana of the states of Bokhara. But, queen or slave, this woman of Persian origin was wonderfully beautiful. Contrary to the Mahometan custom, and no doubt by some caprice of the Emir, she had her face uncovered. Her hair, divided into four plaits, fell over her dazzling white shoulders, scarcely concealed by a veil of silk worked in gold, which fell from the back of a cap studded with gems of the highest value. Under her blue-silk petticoat, striped with a darker shade, fell the “zir-djameh” of silken gauze, and above the sash lay the “pirahn” of the same texture, sloping gracefully to the neck. But from the head to the little feet, incased in Persian slippers, such was the profusion of jewels—gold beads strung on silver threads, chaplets of turquoises, “firouzehs” from the celebrated mines of Elbourz, necklaces of cornelians, agates, emeralds, opals, and sapphires—that her dress seemed to be literally made of precious stones. The thousands of diamonds which sparkled on her neck, arms, hands, at her waist, and at her feet might have been valued at almost countless millions of roubles.

  The Emir and the Khans dismounted, as did the dignitaries who escorted them. All entered a magnificent tent erected on the centre of the first terrace. Before the tent, as usual, the Koran was laid on the sacred table.

  Feofar’s lieutenant did not make them wait, and before five o’clock the trumpets announced his arrival.

  Ivan Ogareff—the Scarred Cheek, as he was already nick-named—this time wearing the uniform of a Tartar officer, dismounted before the Emir’s tent. He was accompanied by a party of soldiers from the camp at Zabediero, who ranged up at the sides of the square, in the middle of which a place for the sports was reserved. A large scar could be distinctly seen cut obliquely across the traitor’s face.

  Ogareff presented his principal officers to the Emir, who, without departing from the coldness which composed the main part of his dignity, received them in a way which satisfied them that they stood well in the good graces of their chief.