However, Michael guessed it. "You are quite done up, poor child,"
he said sometimes.
"No," she would reply.
"When you can no longer walk, I will carry you."
"Yes, Michael."
During this day they came to the little river Oka, but it was fordable,
and they had no difficulty in crossing. The sky was cloudy
and the temperature moderate. There was some fear that the rain
might come on, which would much have increased their misery.
A few showers fell, but they did not last.
They went on as before, hand in hand, speaking little,
Nadia looking about on every side; twice a day they halted.
Six hours of the night were given to sleep. In a few huts Nadia
again found a little mutton; but, contrary to Michael's hopes,
there was not a single beast of burden in the country;
horses, camels--all had been either killed or carried off.
They must still continue to plod on across this weary
steppe on foot.
The third Tartar column, on its way to Irkutsk, had left plain traces:
here a dead horse, there an abandoned cart. The bodies of unfortunate
Siberians lay along the road, principally at the entrances to villages.
Nadia, overcoming her repugnance, looked at all these corpses!
The chief danger lay, not before, but behind.
The advance guard of the Emir's army, commanded by Ivan Ogareff,
might at any moment appear. The boats sent down the lower
Yenisei must by this time have reached Krasnoiarsk and been
made use of. The road was therefore open to the invaders.
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