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either physical or moral, is unpleasant. Then, as he looked
more attentively through the dusk, he perceived, near the cottage,
a large caravan, the usual traveling dwelling of the Zingaris or gypsies,
who swarm in Russia wherever a few copecks can be obtained.

As the gypsy took two or three steps forward, and was about to interrogate
Michael Strogoff more closely, the door of the cottage opened.
He could just see a woman, who spoke quickly in a language which
Michael Strogoff knew to be a mixture of Mongol and Siberian.

"Another spy! Let him alone, and come to supper.
The papluka is waiting for you."

Michael Strogoff could not help smiling at the epithet bestowed on him,
dreading spies as he did above all else.

In the same dialect, although his accent was very different,
the Bohemian replied in words which signify, "You are
right, Sangarre! Besides, we start to-morrow."

"To-morrow?" repeated the woman in surprise.

"Yes, Sangarre," replied the Bohemian; "to-morrow, and the Father
himself sends us--where we are going!"

Thereupon the man and woman entered the cottage, and carefully
closed the door.

"Good!" said Michael Strogoff, to himself; "if these gipsies
do not wish to be understood when they speak before me,
they had better use some other language."

From his Siberian origin, and because he had passed his childhood in
the Steppes, Michael Strogoff, it has been said, understood almost all
the languages in usage from Tartary to the Sea of Ice. As to the exact
signification of the words he had heard, he did not trouble his head.
For why should it interest him?

It was already late when he thought of returning to his inn to take
some repose. He followed, as he did so, the course of the Volga,
whose waters were almost hidden under the countless number of boats
floating on its bosom.

An hour after, Michael Strogoff was sleeping soundly on one
of those Russian beds which always seem so hard to strangers,
and on the morrow, the 17th of July, he awoke at break of day.

He had still five hours to pass in Nijni-Novgorod; it seemed to him
an age. How was he to spend the morning unless in wandering,
as he had done the evening before, through the streets?
By the time he had finished his breakfast, strapped up his bag,
had his podorojna inspected at the police office, he would have
nothing to do but start. But he was not a man to lie in bed after
the sun had risen; so he rose, dressed himself, placed the letter
with the imperial arms on it carefully at the bottom of its usual
pocket within the lining of his coat, over which he fastened
his belt; he then closed his bag and threw it over his shoulder.
This done, he had no wish to return to the City of Constantinople,
and intending to breakfast on the bank of the Volga near the wharf,
he settled his bill and left the inn. By way of precaution,
Michael Strogoff went first to the office of the steam-packet company,
and there made sure that the Caucasus would start at the appointed hour.

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