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His friendly
expressions had been succeeded by the most insulting epithets.
Nothing was of any use. The unfortunate animals, blinded by
the lightning, terrified by the incessant peals of thunder,
threatened every instant to break their traces and flee.
The iemschik had no longer any control over his team.
At that moment Michael Strogoff threw himself from the tarantass
and rushed to his assistance. Endowed with more than common strength,
he managed, though not without difficulty, to master the horses.
The storm now raged with redoubled fury. A perfect avalanche of stones
and trunks of trees began to roll down the slope above them.
"We cannot stop here," said Michael.
"We cannot stop anywhere," returned the iemschik, all his energies
apparently overcome by terror. "The storm will soon send us
to the bottom of the mountain, and that by the shortest way."
"Take you that horse, coward," returned Michael, "I'll look
after this one."
A fresh burst of the storm interrupted him. The driver and he were
obliged to crouch upon the ground to avoid being blown down.
The carriage, notwithstanding their efforts and those of the horses,
was gradually blown back, and had it not been stopped by the trunk
of a tree, it would have gone over the edge of the precipice.
"Do not be afraid, Nadia!" cried Michael Strogoff.
"I'm not afraid," replied the young Livonian, her voice not betraying
the slightest emotion.
The rumbling of the thunder ceased for an instant, the terrible
blast had swept past into the gorge below.
"Will you go back?" said the iemschik.
"No, we must go on! Once past this turning, we shall have the shelter
of the slope."
"But the horses won't move!"
"Do as I do, and drag them on."
"The storm will come back!"
"Do you mean to obey?"
"Do you order it?"
"The Father orders it!" answered Michael, for the first time invoking
the all-powerful name of the Emperor.
"Forward, my swallows!" cried the iemschik, seizing one horse,
while Michael did the same to the other.
Thus urged, the horses began to struggle onward.
They could no longer rear, and the middle horse not being
hampered by the others, could keep in the center of the road.
It was with the greatest difficulty that either man or beasts
could stand against the wind, and for every three steps they took
in advance, they lost one, and even two, by being forced backwards.
They slipped, they fell, they got up again. The vehicle ran
a great risk of being smashed. If the hood had not been
securely fastened, it would have been blown away long before.
Michael Strogoff and the iemschik took more than two hours
in getting up this bit of road, only half a verst in length,
so directly exposed was it to the lashing of the storm.
The danger was not only from the wind which battered against
the travelers, but from the avalanche of stones and broken
trunks which were hurtling through the air.
Suddenly, during a flash of lightning, one of these masses was seen
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