Their opinion of Michael was exactly what the Czar had expressed
at Moscow: "Indeed, this is a Man!"
The raft swiftly threaded its way among the blocks of ice
which were carried along in the current of the Angara. A moving
panorama was displayed on both sides of the river, and, by an
optical illusion, it appeared as if it was the raft which
was motionless before a succession of picturesque scenes.
Here were high granite cliffs, there wild gorges,
down which rushed a torrent; sometimes appeared a clearing
with a still smoking village, then thick pine forests blazing.
But though the Tartars had left their traces on all sides,
they themselves were not to be seen as yet, for they were more
especially massed at the approaches to Irkutsk.
All this time the pilgrims were repeating their prayers aloud,
and the old boatman, shoving away the blocks of ice which pressed
too near them, imperturbably steered the raft in the middle
of the rapid current of the Angara.
CHAPTER XI BETWEEN TWO BANKS
BY eight in the evening, the country, as the state of the sky
had foretold, was enveloped in complete darkness. The moon being new had
not yet risen. From the middle of the river the banks were invisible.
The cliffs were confounded with the heavy, low-hanging clouds.
At intervals a puff of wind came from the east, but it soon died away
in the narrow valley of the Angara.
The darkness could not fail to favor in a considerable degree
the plans of the fugitives.
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