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and are descending the Irtish. Do what you like with that!"
What! such important news, and Harry Blount had not known it;
and his rival, who had probably learned it from some inhabitant of Kasan,
had already transmitted it to Paris. The English paper was distanced!
Harry Blount, crossing his hands behind him, walked off and seated
himself in the stern without uttering a word.
About ten o'clock in the morning, the young Livonian, leaving her cabin,
appeared on deck. Michael Strogoff went forward and took her hand.
"Look, sister!" said he, leading her to the bows of the Caucasus.
The view was indeed well worth seeing. The Caucasus had reached
the confluence of the Volga and the Kama. There she would leave
the former river, after having descended it for nearly three
hundred miles, to ascend the latter for a full three hundred.
The Kama was here very wide, and its wooded banks lovely.
A few white sails enlivened the sparkling water.
The horizon was closed by a line of hills covered with aspens,
alders, and sometimes large oaks.
But these beauties of nature could not distract the thoughts
of the young Livonian even for an instant. She had left her hand
in that of her companion, and turning to him, "At what distance
are we from Moscow?" she asked.
"Nine hundred versts," answered Michael.
"Nine hundred, out of seven thousand!" murmured the girl.
The bell now announced the breakfast hour. Nadia followed
Michael Strogoff to the restaurant. She ate little, and as a poor
girl whose means are small would do. Michael thought it best
to content himself with the fare which satisfied his companion;
and in less than twenty minutes he and Nadia returned on deck.
There they seated themselves in the stern, and without preamble,
Nadia, lowering her voice to be heard by him alone, began:
"Brother, I am the daughter of an exile. My name is
Nadia Fedor. My mother died at Riga scarcely a month ago, and I
am going to Irkutsk to rejoin my father and share his exile."
"I, too, am going to Irkutsk," answered Michael, "and I shall
thank Heaven if it enables me to give Nadia Fedor safe and sound
into her father's hands."
"Thank you, brother," replied Nadia.
Michael Strogoff then added that he had obtained a special
podorojna for Siberia, and that the Russian authorities could
in no way hinder his progress.
Nadia asked nothing more. She saw in this fortunate meeting with Michael
a means only of accelerating her journey to her father.
"I had," said she, "a permit which authorized me to go to Irkutsk,
but the new order annulled that; and but for you, brother, I should
have been unable to leave the town, in which, without doubt,
I should have perished."
"And dared you, alone, Nadia," said Michael, "attempt to cross
the steppes of Siberia?"
"The Tartar invasion was not known when I left Riga. It was only
at Moscow that I learnt the news."
"And despite it, you continued your journey?"
"It was my duty.
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