"Come!" replied Sangarre, and pushing the old Siberian before her,
she took her to Ivan Ogareff, in the middle of the cleared ground.
Michael cast down his eyes that their angry flashings might not appear.
Marfa, standing before Ivan Ogareff, drew herself up, crossed her arms
on her breast, and waited.
"You are Marfa Strogoff?" asked Ogareff.
"Yes," replied the old Siberian calmly.
"Do you retract what you said to me when, three days ago,
I interrogated you at Omsk?"
"No!"
"Then you do not know that your son, Michael Strogoff,
courier of the Czar, has passed through Omsk?"
"I do not know it."
"And the man in whom you thought you recognized your son,
was not he your son?"
"He was not my son."
"And since then you have not seen him amongst the prisoners?"
"No."
"If he were pointed out, would you recognize him?"
"No."
On this reply, which showed such determined resolution,
a murmur was heard amongst the crowd.
Ogareff could not restrain a threatening gesture.
"Listen," said he to Marfa, "your son is here, and you shall
immediately point him out to me."
"No."
"All these men, taken at Omsk and Kolyvan, will defile before you;
and if you do not show me Michael Strogoff, you shall receive
as many blows of the knout as men shall have passed before you."
Ivan Ogareff saw that, whatever might be his threats,
whatever might be the tortures to which he submitted her,
the indomitable Siberian would not speak.
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