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However, after half an hour's exertion, the boatmen got the tarantass
and the three horses on board. The passengers embarked also,
and they shoved off.

For a few minutes all went well. A little way up the river
the current was broken by a long point projecting from the bank,
and forming an eddy easily crossed by the boat. The two boatmen
propelled their barge with long poles, which they handled cleverly;
but as they gained the middle of the stream it grew deeper
and deeper, until at last they could only just reach the bottom.
The ends of the poles were only a foot above the water,
which rendered their use difficult. Michael and Nadia,
seated in the stern of the boat, and always in dread of a delay,
watched the boatmen with some uneasiness.

"Look out!" cried one of them to his comrade.

The shout was occasioned by the new direction the boat was
rapidly taking. It had got into the direct current and was
being swept down the river. By diligent use of the poles,
putting the ends in a series of notches cut below the gunwale,
the boatmen managed to keep the craft against the stream,
and slowly urged it in a slanting direction towards the right bank.

They calculated on reaching it some five or six versts below
the landing place; but, after all, that would not matter
so long as men and beasts could disembark without accident.
The two stout boatmen, stimulated moreover by the promise
of double fare, did not doubt of succeeding in this difficult
passage of the Irtych.

But they reckoned without an accident which they were powerless
to prevent, and neither their zeal nor their skill-fulness could,
under the circumstances, have done more.

The boat was in the middle of the current, at nearly equal
distances from either shore, and being carried down at the rate
of two versts an hour, when Michael, springing to his feet,
bent his gaze up the river.

Several boats, aided by oars as well as by the current,
were coming swiftly down upon them.

Michael's brow contracted, and a cry escaped him.

"What is the matter?" asked the girl.

But before Michael had time to reply one of the boatmen exclaimed
in an accent of terror:

"The Tartars! the Tartars!"

There were indeed boats full of soldiers, and in a few minutes they must
reach the ferryboat, it being too heavily laden to escape from them.

The terrified boatmen uttered exclamations of despair and
dropped their poles.

"Courage, my friends!" cried Michael; "courage! Fifty roubles for you
if we reach the right bank before the boats overtake us."

Incited by these words, the boatmen again worked manfully but it soon
become evident that they could not escape the Tartars.

It was scarcely probable that they would pass without attacking them.
On the contrary, there was everything to be feared from robbers
such as these.

"Do not be afraid, Nadia," said Michael; "but be ready for anything."

"I am ready," replied Nadia.

"Even to leap into the water when I tell you?"

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