One of them was humming a song of strange rhythm, which might be thus rendered: Page 39

"Glitters brightly the gold In my raven locks streaming Rich coral around My graceful neck gleaming; Like a bird of the air, Through the wide world I roam."

The laughing girl continued her song, but Michael Strogoff ceased to listen. It struck him just then that the

Tsigane, Sangarre, was regarding him with a peculiar gaze, as if to fix his features indelibly in her memory.

It was but for a few moments, when Sangarre herself followed the old man and his troop, who had already left the vessel. "That's a bold gypsy," said Michael to himself. "Could she have recognized me as the man whom she saw at NijniNovgorod? These confounded Tsiganes have the eyes of a cat! They can see in the dark; and that woman there might well know"

Michael Strogoff was on the point of following Sangarre and the gypsy band, but he stopped.

"No," thought he, "no unguarded proceedings. If I were to stop that old fortune teller and his companions my incognito would run a risk of being discovered. Besides, now they have landed, before they can pass the frontier I shall be far beyond it. They may take the route from Kasan to Ishim, but that affords no resources to travelers.

Besides a tarantass, drawn by good Siberian horses, will always go faster than a gypsy cart!

Come, friend

Korpanoff, be easy."

By this time the man and Sangarre had disappeared.

Kasan is justly called the "Gate of Asia" and considered as the center of Siberian and Bokharian commerce;

for two roads begin here and lead across the Ural Mountains. Michael Strogoff had very judiciously chosen the one by Perm and Ekaterenburg. It is the great stage road, well supplied with relays kept at the expense of the government, and is prolonged from Ishim to Irkutsk.

It is true that a second routethe one of which Michael had just spoken avoiding the slight detour by

Perm, also connects Kasan with Ishim. It is perhaps shorter than the other, but this advantage is much diminished by the absence of posthouses, the bad roads, and lack of villages. Michael Strogoff was right in the choice he had made, and if, as appeared probable, the gipsies should follow the second route from Kasan to Ishim, he had every chance of arriving before them.

An hour afterwards the bell rang on board the Caucasus, calling the new passengers, and recalling the former ones. It was now seven o'clock in the morning. The requisite fuel had been received on board. The whole vessel began to vibrate from the effects of the steam. She was ready to start. Passengers going from Kasan to

Perm were crowding on the deck.

Michael Strogoff

CHAPTER VIII GOING UP THE KAMA

39

Michael noticed that of the two reporters Blount alone had rejoined the steamer. Was Alcide Jolivet about to miss his passage?

But just as the ropes were being cast off, Jolivet appeared, tearing along. The steamer was already sheering off, the gangway had been drawn onto the quay, but Alcide Jolivet would not stick at such a little thing as that, so, with a bound like a harlequin, he alighted on the deck of the Caucasus almost in his rival's arms.

"I thought the Caucasus was going without you," said the latter.

"Bah!" answered Jolivet, "I should soon have caught you up again, by chartering a boat at my cousin's expense, or by traveling post at twenty copecks a verst, and on horseback. What could I do? It was so long a way from the quay to the telegraph office."

"Have you been to the telegraph office?" asked Harry Blount, biting his lips.

Page 40

"That's exactly where I have been!" answered Jolivet, with his most amiable smile.

"And is it still working to Kolyvan?"

"That I don't know, but I can assure you, for instance, that it is working from Kasan to Paris."

"You sent a dispatch to your cousin?"

"With enthusiasm."

"You had learnt then?"

"Look here, little father, as the Russians say," replied Alcide Jolivet, "I'm a good fellow, and I don't wish to keep anything from you.