Expecting a few more of the same size."
Michael Strogoff had no doubt that the Russians were driven
out of Kolyvan. His last resource was to set out across
the southern steppe.
Just then renewed firing broke out close to the telegraph house,
and a perfect shower of bullets smashed all the glass in the windows.
Harry Blount fell to the ground wounded in the shoulder.
Jolivet even at such a moment, was about to add this postscript
to his dispatch: "Harry Blount, correspondent of the Daily Telegraph,
has fallen at my side struck by--" when the imperturbable clerk
said calmly: "Sir, the wire has broken." And, leaving his wicket,
he quietly took his hat, brushed it round with his sleeve, and,
still smiling, disappeared through a little door which Michael
had not before perceived.
The house was surrounded by Tartar soldiers, and neither Michael
nor the reporters could effect their retreat.
Alcide Jolivet, his useless dispatch in his hand, had run
to Blount, stretched on the ground, and had bravely lifted
him on his shoulders, with the intention of flying with him.
He was too late!
Both were prisoners; and, at the same time, Michael, taken unawares
as he was about to leap from the window, fell into the hands
of the Tartars!
END OF BOOK I
BOOK II
CHAPTER I A TARTAR CAMP
AT a day's march from Kolyvan, several versts beyond
the town of Diachinks, stretches a wide plain, planted here
and there with great trees, principally pines and cedars.
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