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

by Jules Verne

  At least so thought Harry Blount and Alcide Jolivet, the two inseparables, now associated together in the chase after news. After leaving Zabediero, they had proceeded rapidly to Tomsk. The plan they had agreed upon was to leave the Tartars as soon as possible, and to join a Russian regiment, and, if they could, to go with them to Irkutsk. All that they had seen of the invasion, its burnings, its pillages, its murders, had perfectly sickened them, and they longed to be among the ranks of the Siberian army.

  However, Jolivet had told his companion that he could not leave Tomsk without making a sketch of the triumphal entry of the Tartar troops, if it was only to satisfy his cousin’s curiosity, so Harry Blount had agreed to stay a few hours; but the same evening they both intended to take the road to Irkutsk, and being well mounted hoped to distance the Emir’s scouts.

  Alcide and Blount mingled therefore in the crowd, so as to lose no detail of a festival which ought to supply them with a hundred good lines for an article. They admired the magnificence of Feofar-Khan, his wives, his officers, his guards, and all the Eastern pomp, of which the ceremonies of Europe can give not the least idea. But they turned away with disgust when Ivan Ogareff presented himself before the Emir, and waited with some impatience for the amusements to begin.

  “You see, my dear Blount,” said Alcide, “we have come too soon, like honest citizens who like to get their money’s worth. All this is before the curtain rises, and it would have been better taste to arrive only for the ballet.”

  “What ballet?” asked Blount.

  “The compulsory ballet, to be sure. But see, the curtain is going to rise.”

  Alcide Jolivet spoke as if he had been at the Opera, and taking his glass from its case, he prepared, with the air of a connoisseur, “to examine the first act of Feofar’s company.”

  But a painful ceremony was to precede the sports. In fact, the triumph of the vanquisher could not be complete without the public humiliation of the vanquished. This was why several hundreds of prisoners were brought under the soldiers’ whips. They were destined to march past Feofar-Khan and his allies before being crammed with their companions into the prisons in the town.

  In the first ranks of these prisoners figured Michael Strogoff. As Ogareff had ordered, he was specially guarded by a file of soldiers. His mother and Nadia were there also.

  The old Siberian, although energetic enough when her own safety was in question, was frightfully pale. She expected some terrible scene. It was not without reason that her son had been brought before the Emir. She therefore trembled for him. Ivan Ogareff was not a man to forgive having been struck in public by the knout, and his vengeance would be merciless. Some frightful punishment familiar to the barbarians of Central Asia would, no doubt, be inflicted on Michael. Ogareff had protected him against the soldiers because he well knew what would happen by reserving him for the justice of the Emir.

  The mother and son had not been able to speak together since the terrible scene in the camp at Zabediero. They had been pitilessly kept apart—a bitter aggravation of their misery, for it would have been some consolation to have been together during these days of captivity. Marfa longed to ask her son’s pardon for the harm she had unintentionally done him, for she reproached herself with not having commanded her maternal feelings. If she had restrained herself in that post-house at Omsk, when she found herself face to face with him, Michael would have passed unrecognised, and all these misfortunes would have been avoided.

  Michael, on his side, thought that if his mother was there, if Ogareff had brought her with him, it was to make her suffer with the sight of his own punishment, or perhaps some frightful death was reserved for her as well as for himself.

  As to Nadia, she only asked herself how she could save them both, how come to the aid of son and mother. As yet she could only wonder, but she felt instinctively that she must above everything avoid drawing attention upon herself, that she must conceal herself, make herself insignificant. Perhaps she might at least gnaw through the meshes which imprisoned the lion. At any rate if any opportunity was given her she would seize upon it, and sacrifice herself, if need be, for the son of Marfa Strogoff.

  In the mean time the greater part of the prisoners were passing before the Emir, and as they passed each was obliged to prostrate himself, with his forehead in the dust, in token of servitude. Slavery begins by humiliation. When the unfortunate people were too slow in bending, the rough hands of their guards threw them violently to the ground.

  Alcide Jolivet and his companion could not witness such a sight without feeling indignant.

  “It is cowardly—let us go,” said Alcide.

  “No,” answered Blount; “we must see it all.”

  “See it all!—ah!” cried Alcide suddenly, grasping his companion’s arm.

  “What is the matter with you?” asked the latter.

  “Look, Blount; it is she!”

  “What she?”

  “The sister of our travelling companion—alone, and a prisoner! We must save her.”

  “Calm yourself,” replied Blount coolly. “Any interference on our part in behalf of the young girl would be worse than useless.”

  Alcide Jolivet, who had been about to rush forward, stopped, and Nadia—who had not perceived them, her features being half hidden by her hair—passed in her turn before the Emir without attracting his attention.

  However, after Nadia came Marfa Strogoff; and as she did not throw herself quickly in the dust, the guards brutally pushed her.

  She fell.

  Her son struggled so violently that the soldiers who were guarding him could scarcely hold him back.

  But the old woman rose, and they were about to drag her on, when Ogareff interposed, saying—

  “Let that woman stay!”

  As to Nadia, she happily regained the crowd of prisoners. Ivan Ogareff had taken no notice of her.

  Michael was then led before the Emir, and there he remained standing, without casting down his eyes.

  “Your forehead to the ground!” exclaimed Ivan Ogareff.

  “No!” answered Michael.

  Two soldiers endeavoured to make him bend, but they were themselves laid on the ground by a buffet from the young man’s fist.

  Ogareff approached Michael.

  “You shall die!” he said.

  “I can die,” answered Michael fiercely; “but your traitor’s face, Ivan, will not the less carry forever the infamous brand of the knout?”

  At this reply Ivan Ogareff became perfectly livid.

  “Who is this prisoner?” asked the Emir, in a tone of voice terrible from its very calmness.

  “A Russian spy,” answered Ogareff.

  In asserting that Michael was a spy he knew that the sentence pronounced against him would be terrible.

  Michael had stepped up to Ogareff.

  The soldiers stopped him.

  The Emir made a sign at which all the crowd bent low their heads. Then he pointed with his hand to the Koran, which was brought him. He opened the sacred book and placed his finger on one of its pages.

  It was chance, or rather, according to the ideas of these Orientals, God Himself who was about to decide the fate of Michael Strogoff. The people of Central Asia give the name of “fal” to this practice. After having interpreted the sense of the verse touched by the judge’s finger, they apply the sentence whatever it may be.

  The Emir had let his finger rest on the page of the Koran. The chief of the Ulemas then approached, and read in a loud voice a verse which ended with these words—

  “And he will no more see the things of this earth.”

  “Russian spy!” exclaimed Feofar Khan in a voice trembling with fury, “you have come to see what is going on in the Tartar camp. Then look while you may.”

  CHAPTER V.

  “LOOK WHILE YOU MAY!”

  MICHAEL was held before the Emir’s throne, at the foot of the terrace, his hands bound behind his back. His mother, overcome at last by mental and physical t
orture, had sunk to the ground, daring neither to look nor listen.

  “Look while you may,” exclaimed Feofar Khan, stretching his arm towards Michael in a threatening manner.

  Doubtless Ivan Ogareff, being well acquainted with Tartar customs, had taken in the full meaning of these words, for his lips curled for an instant in a cruel smile; he then took his place by Feofar Khan.

  A trumpet call was heard. This was the signal for the amusements to begin.

  “Here comes the ballet,” said Alcide to Blount; “but, contrary to our customs, these barbarians give it before the drama.”

  Michael had been commanded to look at everything. He looked.

  A troop of dancers poured into the open space before the Emir’s tent. Different Tartar instruments, the “doutare,” a long-handled guitar, made of mulberry wood, with two strings of twisted silk tuned in fours; the “kobize,” a kind of violoncello, partly open at the back, strung with horse-hair, and played with a bow; the “tschibyzga,” a long reed flute; wind instruments, tom-toms, tambourines, united with the deep voices of the singers, formed a strange harmony. Added to this were the strains of an aerial orchestra, composed of a dozen kites, which, fastened by strings to their centres, resounded in the breeze like Æolian harps.

  Then the dances began.

  The performers were all of Persian origin; they were no longer slaves, but exercised their profession at liberty. Formerly they figured officially in the ceremonies at the court of Teheran, but since the accession of the reigning family, banished or treated with contempt, they had been compelled to seek their fortune elsewhere. They wore the national costume, and were adorned with a profusion of jewels. Little triangles of gold, studded with jewels, glittered in their ears. Circles of silver, marked with black, surrounded their necks and legs; pendants, richly ornamented with pearls, turquoises, and cornelians, glistened at the end of their long braids of hair. The belt which encircled the waist was fastened by a bright buckle.

  These performers gracefully executed various dances, sometimes alone, sometimes in groups. Their faces were uncovered, but from time to time they threw a light veil over their heads, and a gauze cloud passed over their bright eyes as smoke over a starry sky. Some of these Persians wore leathern belts embroidered with pearls, from which hung little triangular bags, with the points downwards, which they opened at a certain moment. From these bags, embroidered with golden filagree, they drew long narrow bands of scarlet silk, on which were braided verses of the Koran. These bands, which they held between them, formed a belt under which the other dancers darted; and, as they passed each verse, following the precept it contained, they either prostrated themselves on the earth or lightly bounded upwards, as though to take a place among the houris of Mohammed’s heaven.

  But what was remarkable, and what struck Alcide, was that the Persians appeared rather indolent than fiery. Their passion had deserted them, and, by the kind of dances as well as by their execution, they recalled rather the calm and self-possessed nauch girls of India than the impassioned dancers of Egypt.

  When this was over, a stern voice was heard saying—

  “Look while you may!”

  The man who repeated the Emir’s words—a tall spare Tartar—was he who carried out the sentences of Feofar Khan against offenders. He had taken his place behind Michael, holding in his hand a broad curved sabre, one of those Damascene blades which are forged by the celebrated armourers of Karschi or Hissar.

  Behind him guards were carrying a tripod supporting a chafing-dish filled with live coals. No smoke arose from this, but a light vapour surrounded it, due to the incineration of a certain aromatic and resinous substance which had been thrown on the surface.

  The Persians were succeeded by another party of dancers, whom Michael immediately recognized.

  The journalists also appeared to recognize them, for Blount said to his companion—

  “These are the Tsiganes of Nijni-Novgorod.”

  “No doubt of it,” cried Alcide. “Their eyes, I imagine, bring more money to these spies than their legs.”

  In putting them down as agents in the Emir’s service, Alcide Jolivet was, by all accounts, not mistaken.

  In the first rank of the Tsiganes, Sangarre appeared, superb in her strange and picturesque costume, which set off still further her remarkable beauty.

  Sangarre did not dance, but she stood as a statue in the midst of the performers, whose style of dancing was a combination of that of all those countries through which their race had passed—Turkey, Bohemia, Egypt, Italy, and Spain. They were enlivened by the sound of cymbals, which clashed on their arms, and by the hollow sounds of the “daïres”—a sort of tambourine played with the fingers.

  Sangarre, holding one of these daïres, which she played between her hands, encouraged this troupe of veritable corybantes.

  A young Tsigane, of about fifteen years of age, then advanced. He held in his hand a “doutare,” the strings of which he made to vibrate by a simple movement of the nails. He sung. During the singing of each couplet, of very peculiar rhythm, a dancer took her position by him and remained there immovable, listening to him; but each time that the burden came from the lips of the young singer, she resumed her dance, dinning in his ears with her daïre, and deafening him with the clashing of her cymbals. Then, after the last chorus, the remainder surrounded the Tsigane in the windings of their dance.

  At that moment a shower of gold fell from the hands of the Emir and his train, and from the hands of his officers of all ranks; to the noise which the pieces made as they struck the cymbals of the dancers, being added the last murmurs of the doutares and tambourines.

  “Lavish as robbers,” said Alcide in the ear of his companion. And in fact it was the result of plunder which was falling; for, with the Tartar tomans and sequins, rained also Russian ducats and roubles.

  Then silence followed for an instant, and the voice of the executioner, who laid his hand on Michael’s shoulder, once more pronounced the words, which this repetition rendered more and more sinister—

  “Look while you may!”

  But this time Alcide observed that the executioner no longer held the sabre bare in his hand.

  Meanwhile the sun had sunk behind the horizon. A semi-obscurity began to envelop the plain. The mass of cedars and pines became blacker and blacker, and the waters of the Tom, totally obscured in the distance, mingled with the approaching shadows.

  But at that instant several hundreds of slaves, bearing lighted torches, entered the square. Led by Sangarre, Tsiganes and Persians reappeared before the Emir’s throne, and showed off, by the contrast, their dances of styles so different The instruments of the Tartar orchestra sounded forth in harmony still more savage, accompanied by the guttural cries of the singers. The kites, which had fallen to the ground, once more winged their way into the sky, each bearing a parti-coloured lantern, and under a fresher breeze their harps vibrated with intenser sound in the midst of the aerial illumination.

  Then a squadron of Tartars, in their brilliant uniforms, mingled in the dances, whose wild fury was increasing rapidly, and then began a performance which produced a very strange effect.

  Soldiers now came on the ground, armed with bare sabres and long pistols, and, as they executed dances, they made the air re-echo with the sudden detonations of their fire-arms, which immediately set going the rumbling of the tambourines, and grumblings of the daïres, and the gnashing of doutares.

  Their arms, covered with a coloured powder of some metallic ingredient, after the Chinese fashion, threw long jets—red, green, and blue—so that the groups of dancers seemed to be in the midst of fireworks. In some respects, this performance recalled the military dance of the ancients, which took place in the midst of naked swords and daggers, and it is possible that tradition has handed it down to the people of Central Asia; but this Tartar dance was rendered yet more fantastic by the coloured fire, which wound, serpent-like, above the dancers, whose dresses seemed to be embroidered with fier
y hems. It was like a kaleidoscope of sparks, whose infinite combinations varied at each movement of the dancers.

  Though it may be thought that a Parisian reporter would be perfectly hardened to any scenic effect, which our modern ideas have carried so far, yet Alcide Jolivet could not restrain a slight movement of the head, which at home, between the Boulevard Montmartre and La Madeleine would have said—“Very fair, very fair.”

  Then, suddenly, at a signal, all the lights of the fantasia were extinguished, the dances ceased, and the performers disappeared. The ceremony was over, and the torches alone lighted up the plateau, which a few instants before had been so brilliantly illuminated.

  On a sign from the Emir, Michael was led into the middle of the square.

  “Blount,” said Alcide to his companion, “are you going to see the end of all this?”

  “No, that I am not,” replied Blount

  “The readers of the Daily Telegraph are, I hope, not very eager for the details of an execution à la mode Tartare?”

  “No more than your cousin!”

  “Poor fellow!” added Alcide, as he watched Michael. “That valiant soldier should have fallen on the field of battle!”

  “Can we do nothing to save him?” said Blount.

  “Nothing!”

  The reporters recalled Michael’s generous conduct towards them; they knew now through what trials he must have passed, ever obedient to his duty; and in the midst of these Tartars, to whom pity is unknown, they could do nothing for him.

  Having little desire to be present at the torture reserved for the unfortunate man, they returned to the town.

  An hour later, they were on the road to Irkutsk, for it was among the Russians that they intended to follow what Alcide called, by anticipation, “the campaign of revenge.”

  Meantime, Michael was standing ready, his eyes returning the Emir’s haughty glance, while his countenance assumed an expression of intense scorn whenever he cast his looks on Ivan Ogareff. He was prepared to die, yet not a single sign of weakness escaped him.