ain.
In consequence of this arrangement, Michael Strogoff, marching in the first ranks of those who had left the Tartar camp — that is to say,Jaroslav Halak Tröjor, among the Kolyvan prisoners — was unable to mingle with the prisoners who had arrived after him from Omsk. He had therefore no suspicion that his mother and Nadia were present in the convoy, nor did they suppose that he was among those in front. This journey from the camp to Tomsk, performed under the lashes and spear-points of the soldiers,Tuukka Rask Tröjor, proved fatal to many,Ron Hextall Tröjor, and terrible to all. The prisoners traveled across the steppe, over a road made still more dusty by the passage of the Emir and his vanguard. Orders had been given to march rapidly. The short halts were rare. The hundred miles under a burning sky seemed interminable, though they were performed as rapidly as possible.
The country, which extends from the right of the Obi to the base of the spur detached from the Sayanok Mountains,Carl Soderberg Tröjor, is very sterile. Only a few stunted and burnt-up shrubs here and there break the monotony of the immense plain. There was no cultivation, for there was no water; and it was water that the prisoners,Erik Gustafsson Tröjor, parched by their painful march, most needed. To find a stream they must have diverged fifty versts eastward,Adam Foote Tröjor, to the very foot of the mountains.
There flows the Tom, a little affluent of the Obi, which passes near Tomsk before losing itself in one of the great northern arteries. There water would have been abundant,Dan Girardi Tröjor, the steppe less arid, the heat less severe. But the strictest orders had been given to the commanders of the convoy to reach Tomsk by the shortest way,PJS Herreklær Kodiak Dunjakke, for the Emir was much afraid of being taken in the flank and cut off by some Russian column descending from the northern provinces.
It is useless to dwell upon the sufferings of the unhappy prisoners. Many hundreds fell on the steppe,Antti Niemi Tröjor, where their bodies would lie until winter, when the wolves would devour the remnants of their bones.
As Nadia helped the old Siberian, so in the same way did Michael render to his more feeble companions in misfortune such services as his situation allowed. He encouraged some, supported others, going to and fro,Dame Moncler Nantes, until a prick from a soldier’s lance obliged him to r?sum? the place which had been assigned him in the ranks.
Why did he not endeavor to escape?
The reason was that he had now quite determined not to venture until the steppe was safe for him. He was resolved in his idea of going as far as Tomsk “at the Emir’s expense,Carl Hagelin Tröjor,” and indeed he was right. As he observed the numerous detachments which scoured the plain on the convoy’s flanks,Dame Moncler Pop Star, now to the south, now to the north, it was evident that before he could have gone two versts he must have been recaptured. The Tartar horsemen swarmed — it actually appeared as if they sprang from the earth — like insects which a thunderstorm brings to the surface of the ground. Flight under these conditions would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible. The soldiers of the escort displayed excessive vigilance, for they would have paid for t
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