IVAN OGAREFF'S plan had been contrived with the greatest care,
and except for some unforeseen accident he believed that it must succeed.
It was of importance that the Bolchaia Gate should be unguarded
or only feebly held when he gave it up. The attention of the
besieged was therefore to be drawn to another part of the town.
A diversion was agreed upon with the Emir.
This diversion was to be effected both up and down the river,
on the Irkutsk bank. The attack on these two points was to be
conducted in earnest, and at the same time a feigned attempt
at crossing the Angara from the left bank was to be made.
The Bolchaia Gate, would be probably deserted, so much the more
because on this side the Tartar outposts having drawn back,
would appear to have broken up.
It was the 5th of October. In four and twenty hours,
the capital of Eastern Siberia would be in the hands of the Emir,
and the Grand Duke in the power of Ivan Ogareff.
During the day, an unusual stir was going on in the Angara camp.
From the windows of the palace important preparations
on the opposite shore could be distinctly seen.
Numerous Tartar detachments were converging towards the camp,
and from hour to hour reinforced the Emir's troops.
These movements, intended to deceive the besieged, were conducted
in the most open manner possible before their eyes.
Ogareff had warned the Grand Duke that an attack was to be feared.
He knew, he said, that an assault was to be made, both above and below
the town, and he counselled the Duke to reinforce the two directly
threatened points. Accordingly, after a council of war had been held
in the palace, orders were issued to concentrate the defense on the bank
of the Angara and at the two ends of the town, where the earthworks
protected the river.
This was exactly what Ogareff wished. He did not expect that
the Bolchaia Gate would be left entirely without defenders,
but that there would only be a small number. Besides, Ogareff meant
to give such importance to the diversion, that the Grand Duke
would be obliged to oppose it with all his available forces.
The traitor planned also to produce so frightful a catastrophe
that terror must inevitably overwhelm the hearts of the besieged.
All day the garrison and population of Irkutsk were on the alert.
The measures to repel an attack on the points hitherto unassailed had
been taken. The Grand Duke and General Voranzoff visited the posts,
strengthened by their orders. Wassili Fedor's corps occupied the North
of the town, but with orders to throw themselves where the danger
was greatest. The right bank of the Angara had been protected
with the few guns possessed by the defenders. With these measures,
taken in time, thanks to the advice so opportunely given by Ivan Ogareff,
there was good reason to hope that the expected attack would be repulsed.
In that case the Tartars, momentarily discouraged, would no doubt
not make another attempt against the town for several days.
Now the troops expected by the Grand Duke might arrive at any hour.
The safety or the loss of Irkutsk hung only by a thread.
On this day, the sun which had risen at twenty minutes to six,
set at forty minutes past five, having traced its diurnal
arc for eleven hours above the horizon. The twilight would
struggle with the night for another two hours. Then it would be
intensely dark, for the sky was cloudy, and there would be no moon.
This gloom would favor the plans of Ivan Ogareff.
For a few days already a sharp frost had given warning of
the approaching rigor of the Siberian winter, and this evening
it was especially severe. The Russians posted by the bank of
the Angara, obliged to conceal their position, lighted no fires.
They suffered cruelly from the low temperature. A few feet
below them, the ice in large masses drifted down the current.
All day these masses had been seen passing rapidly between
the two banks.
This had been considered by the Grand Duke and his officers as fortunate.
Should the channel of the Angara continue to be thus obstructed,
the passage must be impracticable. The Tartars could use neither
rafts nor boats. As to their crossing the river on the ice,
that was not possible. The newly-frozen plain could not bear
the weight of an assaulting column.
This circumstance, as it appeared favorable to the defenders
of Irkutsk, Ogareff might have regretted. He did not do so, however.
The traitor knew well that the Tartars would not try to pass the Angara,
and that, on its side at least, their attempt was only a feint.
About ten in the evening, the state of the river sensibly improved, to the
great surprise of the besieged and still more to their disadvantage.
The passage till then impracticable, became all at once possible.
The bed of the Angara was clear. The blocks of ice, which had for some
days drifted past in large numbers, disappeared down the current,
and five or six only now occupied the space between the banks.
The Russian officers reported this change in the river to
the Grand Duke. They suggested that it was probably caused
by the circumstance that in some narrower part of the Angara,
the blocks had accumulated so as to form a barrier.
We know this was the case. The passage of the Angara was thus
open to the besiegers. There was great reason for the Russians
to be on their guard.
Up to midnight nothing had occurred. On the Eastern side,
beyond the Bolchaia Gate, all was quiet. Not a glimmer was seen
in the dense forest, which appeared confounded on the horizon
with the masses of clouds hanging low down in the sky.
Lights flitting to and fro in the Angara camp, showed that a
considerable movement was taking place. From a verst above and below
the point where the scarp met the river's bank, came a dull murmur,
proving that the Tartars were on foot, expecting some signal.
An hour passed. Nothing new.
The bell of the Irkutsk cathedral was about to strike two o'clock
in the morning, and not a movement amongst the besiegers had yet
shown that they were about to commence the assault. The Grand Duke
and his officers began to suspect that they had been mistaken.
Had it really been the Tartars' plan to surprise the town?
The preceding nights had not been nearly so quiet--musketry rattling
from the outposts, shells whistling through the air; and this
time, nothing. The officers waited, ready to give their orders,
according to circumstances.
We have said that Ogareff occupied a room in the palace.
It was a large chamber on the ground floor, its windows opening
on a side terrace. By taking a few steps along this terrace,
a view of the river could be obtained.
Profound darkness reigned in the room. Ogareff stood by a window,
awaiting the hour to act. The signal, of course, could come
from him, alone. This signal once given, when the greater part
of the defenders of Irkutsk would be summoned to the points
openly attacked, his plan was to leave the palace and hurry
to the Bolchaia Gate. If it was unguarded, he would open it;
or at least he would direct the overwhelming mass of its assailants
against the few defenders.
He now crouched in the shadow, like a wild beast ready to spring
on its prey. A few minutes before two o'clock, the Grand Duke
desired that Michael Strogoff--which was the only name they
could give to Ivan Ogareff--should be brought to him.
An aide-de-camp came to the room, the door of which was closed.
He called.
Ogareff, motionless near the window, and invisible in the shade did
not answer. The Grand Duke was therefore informed that the Czar's
courier was not at that moment in the palace.
Two o'clock struck. Now was the time to cause the diversion
agreed upon with the Tartars, waiting for the assault.
Ivan Ogareff opened the window and stationed himself at the North
angle of the side terrace.
Below him flowed the roaring waters of the Angara. Ogareff took
a match from his pocket, struck it and lighted a small bunch of tow,
impregnated with priming powder, which he threw into the river.
It was by the orders of Ivan Ogareff that the torrents of mineral oil
had been thrown on the surface of the Angara! There are numerous
naphtha springs above Irkutsk, on the right bank, between the suburb
of Poshkavsk and the town. Ogareff had resolved to employ this terrible
means to carry fire into Irkutsk. He therefore took possession
of the immense reservoirs which contained the combustible liquid.
It was only necessary to demolish a piece of wall in order to allow
it to flow out in a vast stream.
This had been done that night, a few hours previously, and this
was the reason that the raft which carried the true Courier of
the Czar, Nadia, and the fugitives, floated on a current of mineral oil.
Through the breaches in these reservoirs of enormous dimensions rushed
the naphtha in torrents, and, following the inclination of the ground,
it spread over the surface of the river, where its density allowed
it to float. This was the way Ivan Ogareff carried on warfare!
Allied with Tartars, he acted like a Tartar, and against
his own countrymen!
The tow had been thrown on the waters of the Angara. In an instant,
with electrical rapidity, as if the current had been of alcohol,
the whole river was in a blaze above and below the town.
Columns of blue flames ran between the two banks. Volumes of vapor
curled up above. The few pieces of ice which still drifted were seized
by the burning liquid, and melted like wax on the top of a furnace,
the evaporated water escaping in shrill hisses.
At the same moment, firing broke out on the North and South of the town.
The enemy's batteries discharged their guns at random.
Several thousand Tartars rushed to the assault of the earth-works.
The houses on the bank, built of wood, took fire in every direction.
A bright light dissipated the darkness of the night.
"At last!" said Ivan Ogareff.
He had good reason for congratulating himself. The diversion which
he had planned was terrible. The defenders of Irkutsk found themselves
between the attack of the Tartars and the fearful effects of fire.
The bells rang, and all the able-bodied of the population ran,
some towards the points attacked, and others towards the houses
in the grasp of the flames, which it seemed too probable would ere
long envelop the whole town.
The Gate of Bolchaia was nearly free. Only a very small
guard had been left there. And by the traitor's suggestion,
and in order that the event might be explained apart from him,
as if by political hate, this small guard had been chosen
from the little band of exiles.
Ogareff re-entered his room, now brilliantly lighted by
the flames from the Angara; then he made ready to go out.
But scarcely had he opened the door, when a woman rushed into
the room, her clothes drenched, her hair in disorder.
"Sangarre!" exclaimed Ogareff, in the first moment of surprise,
and not supposing that it could be any other woman than the gypsy.
It was not Sangarre; it was Nadia!
At the moment when, floating on the ice, the girl had uttered
a cry on seeing the fire spreading along the current,
Michael had seized her in his arms, and plunged with her into
the river itself to seek a refuge in its depths from the flames.
The block which bore them was not thirty fathoms from the first
quay of Irkutsk.
Swimming beneath the water, Michael managed to get a footing with
Nadia on the quay. Michael Strogoff had reached his journey's end!
He was in Irkutsk!
"To the governor's palace!" said he to Nadia.
In less than ten minutes, they arrived at the entrance to the palace.
Long tongues of flame from the Angara licked its walls, but were powerless
to set it on fire. Beyond the houses on the bank were in a blaze.
The palace being open to all, Michael and Nadia entered
without difficulty. In the confusion, no one remarked them,
although their garments were dripping. A crowd of officers
coming for orders, and of soldiers running to execute them,
filled the great hall on the ground floor. There, in a sudden
eddy of the confused multitude, Michael and the young girl
were separated from each other.
Nadia ran distracted through the passages, calling her companion,
and asking to be taken to the Grand Duke. A door into a room flooded
with light opened before her. She entered, and found herself
suddenly face to face with the man whom she had met at Ichim,
whom she had seen at Tomsk; face to face with the one whose
villainous hand would an instant later betray the town!
"Ivan Ogareff!" she cried.
On hearing his name pronounced, the wretch started. His real name known,
all his plans would be balked. There was but one thing to be done:
to kill the person who had just uttered it. Ogareff darted at Nadia;
but the girl, a knife in her hand, retreated against the wall,
determined to defend herself.
"Ivan Ogareff!" again cried Nadia, knowing well that so detested
a name would soon bring her help.
"Ah! Be silent!" hissed out the traitor between his clenched teeth.
"Ivan Ogareff!" exclaimed a third time the brave young girl,
in a voice to which hate had added ten-fold strength.
Mad with fury, Ogareff, drawing a dagger from his belt, again rushed
at Nadia and compelled her to retreat into a corner of the room.
Her last hope appeared gone, when the villain, suddenly lifted
by an irresistible force, was dashed to the ground.
"Michael!" cried Nadia.
It was Michael Strogoff. Michael had heard Nadia's call.
Guided by her voice, he had just in time reached Ivan Ogareff's room,
and entered by the open door.
"Fear nothing, Nadia," said he, placing himself between her and Ogareff.
"Ah!" cried the girl, "take care, brother! The traitor is armed!
He can see!"
Ogareff rose, and, thinking he had an immeasurable advantage
over the blind man leaped upon him. But with one hand,
the blind man grasped the arm of his enemy, seized his weapon,
and hurled him again to the ground.
Pale with rage and shame, Ogareff remembered that he wore a sword.
He drew it and returned a second time to the charge.
A blind man! Ogareff had only to deal with a blind man!
He was more than a match for him!
Nadia, terrified at the danger which threatened her companion
ran to the door calling for help!
"Close the door, Nadia!" said Michael. "Call no one, and leave me alone!
The Czar's courier has nothing to fear to-day from this villain!
Let him come on, if he dares! I am ready for him."
In the mean time, Ogareff, gathering himself together like a tiger
about to spring, uttered not a word. The noise of his footsteps, his
very breathing, he endeavored to conceal from the ear of the blind man.
His object was to strike before his opponent was aware of his approach,
to strike him with a deadly blow.
Nadia, terrified and at the same time confident, watched this terrible
scene with involuntary admiration. Michael's calm bearing seemed
to have inspired her. Michael's sole weapon was his Siberian knife.
He did not see his adversary armed with a sword, it is true; but Heaven's
support seemed to be afforded him. How, almost without stirring,
did he always face the point of the sword?
Ivan Ogareff watched his strange adversary with visible anxiety.
His superhuman calm had an effect upon him. In vain, appealing to
his reason, did he tell himself that in so unequal a combat all the
advantages were on his side. The immobility of the blind man froze him.
He had settled on the place where he would strike his victim.
He had fixed upon it! What, then, hindered him from putting an end
to his blind antagonist?
At last, with a spring he drove his sword full at Michael's breast.
An imperceptible movement of the blind man's knife turned aside the blow.
Michael had not been touched, and coolly he awaited a second attack.
Cold drops stood on Ogareff's brow. He drew back a step, then again
leaped forward. But as had the first, this second attempt failed.
The knife had simply parried the blow from the traitor's useless sword.
Mad with rage and terror before this living statue,
he gazed into the wide-open eyes of the blind man.
Those eyes which seemed to pierce to the bottom of his soul,
and yet which did not, could not, see--exercised a sort
of dreadful fascination over him.
All at once, Ogareff uttered a cry. A sudden light flashed
across his brain. "He sees!" he exclaimed, "he sees!"
And like a wild beast trying to retreat into its den,
step by step, terrified, he drew back to the end of the room.
Then the statue became animated, the blind man walked straight up
to Ivan Ogareff, and placing himself right before him, "Yes, I see!"
said he. "I see the mark of the knout which I gave you,
traitor and coward! I see the place where I am about to strike you!
Defend your life! It is a duel I deign to offer you!
My knife against your sword!"
"He sees!" said Nadia. "Gracious Heaven, is it possible!"
Ogareff felt that he was lost. But mustering all his courage, he sprang
forward on his impassible adversary. The two blades crossed, but at
a touch from Michael's knife, wielded in the hand of the Siberian hunter,
the sword flew in splinters, and the wretch, stabbed to the heart,
fell lifeless on the ground.
At the same moment, the door was thrown open. The Grand Duke,
accompanied by some of his officers, appeared on the threshold.
The Grand Duke advanced. In the body lying on the ground,
he recognized the man whom he believed to be the Czar's courier.
Then, in a threatening voice, "Who killed that man?" he asked.
"I," replied Michael.
One of the officers put a pistol to his temple, ready to fire.
"Your name?" asked the Grand Duke, before giving the order
for his brains to be blown out.
"Your Highness," answered Michael, "ask me rather the name of the man
who lies at your feet!"
"That man, I know him! He is a servant of my brother!
He is the Czar's courier!"
"That man, your Highness, is not a courier of the Czar! He is
Ivan Ogareff!"
"Ivan Ogareff!" exclaimed the Grand Duke.
"Yes, Ivan the Traitor!"
"But who are you, then?"
"Michael Strogoff!"
