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"Yes," answered the Siberian, "there are some things even a plain
merchant cannot receive without returning."

"Blows?"

"Blows, young man. I am of an age and strength to tell you so."

Michael went up to the postmaster and laid his two powerful hands
on his shoulders.

Then in a peculiarly calm tone, "Be off, my friend," said he:
"be off! I could kill you."

The postmaster understood. "I like him better for that,"
he muttered and retired without another word.

At eight o'clock the next morning, the 24th of July,
three strong horses were harnessed to the tarantass.
Michael Strogoff and Nadia took their places, and Ichim,
with its disagreeable remembrances, was soon left far behind.

At the different relays at which they stopped during the day Strogoff
ascertained that the berlin still preceded them on the road to Irkutsk,
and that the traveler, as hurried as they were, never lost a minute
in pursuing his way across the steppe.

At four o'clock in the evening they reached Abatskaia,
fifty miles farther on, where the Ichim, one of the principal
affluents of the Irtych, had to be crossed. This passage
was rather more difficult than that of the Tobol. Indeed the
current of the Ichim was very rapid just at that place.
During the Siberian winter, the rivers being all frozen
to a thickness of several feet, they are easily practicable,
and the traveler even crosses them without being aware of the fact,
for their beds have disappeared under the snowy sheet spread
uniformly over the steppe; but in summer the difficulties
of crossing are sometimes great.

In fact, two hours were taken up in making the passage
of the Ichim, which much exasperated Michael, especially as
the boatmen gave them alarming news of the Tartar invasion.
Some of Feofar-Khan's scouts had already appeared on both banks
of the lower Ichim, in the southern parts of the government
of Tobolsk. Omsk was threatened. They spoke of an engagement
which had taken place between the Siberian and Tartar troops
on the frontier of the great Kirghese horde--an engagement not
to the advantage of the Russians, who were weak in numbers.
The troops had retreated thence, and in consequence there had
been a general emigration of all the peasants of the province.
The boatmen spoke of horrible atrocities committed by the invaders--
pillage, theft, incendiarism, murder. Such was the system
of Tartar warfare.

The people all fled before Feofar-Khan. Michael Strogoff's
great fear was lest, in the depopulation of the towns,
he should be unable to obtain the means of transport.
He was therefore extremely anxious to reach Omsk. Perhaps there
they would get the start of the Tartar scouts, who were coming
down the valley of the Irtych, and would find the road
open to Irkutsk.

Just at the place where the tarantass crossed the river ended
what is called, in military language, the "Ichim chain"--a chain
of towers, or little wooden forts, extending from the southern

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