The adverse chances are numerous on this side of Tomsk, while beyond
I shall in a few hours have passed the most advanced Tartar posts
to the east. Still three days of patience, and may God aid me!"
It was indeed a journey of three days which the prisoners, under the guard
of a numerous detachment of Tartars, were to make across the steppe.
A hundred and fifty versts lay between the camp and the town--
an easy march for the Emir's soldiers, who wanted for nothing,
but a wretched journey for these people, enfeebled by privations.
More than one corpse would show the road they had traversed.
It was two o'clock in the afternoon, on the 12th of August,
under a hot sun and cloudless sky, that the toptschi-baschi
gave the order to start.
Alcide and Blount, having bought horses, had already taken the road
to Tomsk, where events were to reunite the principal personages
of this story.
Amongst the prisoners brought by Ivan Ogareff to the Tartar camp
was an old woman, whose taciturnity seemed to keep her apart from
all those who shared her fate. Not a murmur issued from her lips.
She was like a statue of grief. This woman was more strictly
guarded than anyone else, and, without her appearing to notice,
was constantly watched by the Tsigane Sangarre. Notwithstanding her
age she was compelled to follow the convoy of prisoners on foot,
without any alleviation of her suffering.
However, a kind Providence had placed near her a courageous,
kind-hearted being to comfort and assist her.
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