A cry was about to escape her. She seized Michael's hand,
who at that moment raised his head.
"What is the matter, Nadia?" he asked.
"Our two traveling companions, Michael."
"The Frenchman and the Englishman whom we met in the defiles
of the Ural?"
"Yes."
Michael started, for the strict incognito which he wished
to keep ran a risk of being betrayed. Indeed, it was no longer
as Nicholas Korpanoff that Jolivet and Blount would now see him,
but as the true Michael Strogoff, Courier of the Czar. The two
correspondents had already met him twice since their separation
at the Ichim post-house--the first time at the Zabediero camp,
when he laid open Ivan Ogareff's face with the knout; the second
time at Tomsk, when he was condemned by the Emir. They therefore
knew who he was and what depended on him.
Michael Strogoff rapidly made up his mind. "Nadia," said he,
"when they step on board, ask them to come to me!"
It was, in fact, Blount and Jolivet, whom the course of events
had brought to the port of Livenitchnaia, as it had brought
Michael Strogoff. As we know, after having been present
at the entry of the Tartars into Tomsk, they had departed
before the savage execution which terminated the fete.
They had therefore never suspected that their former traveling
companion had not been put to death, but blinded by order
of the Emir.
Having procured horses they had left Tomsk the same evening,
with the fixed determination of henceforward dating their letters
from the Russian camp of Eastern Siberia.
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