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shouts from the agents and Cossacks who were using them so brutally,
together made an indescribable uproar. The girl for whom he searched
could not be there. It was now nine o'clock in the morning.
The steamboat did not start till twelve. Michael Strogoff had
therefore nearly two hours to employ in searching for her whom
he wished to make his traveling companion.

He crossed the Volga again and hunted through the quarters
on the other side, where the crowd was much less considerable.
He entered the churches, the natural refuge for all who weep,
for all who suffer. Nowhere did he meet with the young Livonian.

"And yet," he repeated, "she could not have left Nijni-Novgorod yet.
We'll have another look." He wandered about thus for two hours.
He went on without stopping, feeling no fatigue, obeying a potent
instinct which allowed no room for thought. All was in vain.

It then occurred to him that perhaps the girl had not heard
of the order--though this was improbable enough, for such a
thunder-clap could not have burst without being heard by all.
Evidently interested in knowing the smallest news from Siberia,
how could she be ignorant of the measures taken by the governor,
measures which concerned her so directly?

But, if she was ignorant of it, she would come in an hour to the quay,
and there some merciless agent would refuse her a passage!
At any cost, he must see her beforehand, and enable her to avoid
such a repulse.

But all his endeavors were in vain, and he at length almost despaired
of finding her again. It was eleven o'clock, and Michael thought
of presenting his podorojna at the office of the head of police.
The proclamation evidently did not concern him, since the emergency
had been foreseen for him, but he wished to make sure that nothing
would hinder his departure from the town.

Michael then returned to the other side of the Volga,
to the quarter in which was the office of the head of police.
An immense crowd was collected there; for though all foreigners
were ordered to quit the province, they had notwithstanding
to go through certain forms before they could depart.

Without this precaution, some Russian more or less implicated
in the Tartar movement would have been able, in a disguise, to pass
the frontier--just those whom the order wished to prevent going.
The strangers were sent away, but still had to gain permission to go.

Mountebanks, gypsies, Tsiganes, Zingaris, mingled with merchants
from Persia, Turkey, India, Turkestan, China, filled the court
and offices of the police station.

Everyone was in a hurry, for the means of transport would be much
sought after among this crowd of banished people, and those who did
not set about it soon ran a great risk of not being able to leave
the town in the prescribed time, which would expose them to some
brutal treatment from the governor's agents.

Owing to the strength of his elbows Michael was able to cross the court.
But to get into the office and up to the clerk's little window was a much

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