before them."

"Indeed I must," replied Michael.

"It is reported also that Colonel Ogareff has succeeded in passing the
frontier in disguise, and that he will not be slow in joining the Tartar
chief in the revolted country."

"But how do they know it?" asked Michael, whom this news, more or less
true, so directly concerned.

"Oh! as these things are always known," replied Alcide; "it is in the
air."

"Then have you really reason to think that Colonel Ogareff is in
Siberia?"

"I myself have heard it said that he was to take the road from Kasan to
Ekaterenburg."

"Ah! you know that, Mr. Jolivet?" said Harry Blount, roused from his
silence.

"I knew it," replied Alcide.

"And do you know that he went disguised as a gypsy!" asked Blount.

"As a gypsy!" exclaimed Michael, almost involuntarily, and he suddenly
remembered the look of the old Bohemian at Nijni-Novgorod, his voyage on
board the Caucasus, and his disembarking at Kasan.

"Just well enough to make a few remarks on the subject in a letter to my
cousin," replied Alcide, smiling.

"You lost no time at Kasan," dryly observed the Englishman.

"No, my dear fellow! and while the Caucasus was laying in her supply of
fuel, I was employed in obtaining a store of information."

Michael no longer listened to the repartee which Harry Blount and Alcide
exchanged. He was thinking of the gypsy troupe, of the old Tsigane,
whose face he had not been able to see, and of the strange woman who
accompanied him, and then of the peculiar glance which she had cast at
him. Suddenly, close by he heard a pistol-shot.

"Ah! forward, sirs!" cried he.

"Hullo!" said Alcide to himself, "this quiet merchant who always avoids
bullets is in a great hurry to go where they are flying about just now!"

Quickly followed by Harry Blount, who was not a man to be behind in
danger, he dashed after Michael. In another instant the three were
opposite the projecting rock which protected the tarantass at the
turning of the road.

The clump of pines struck by the lightning was still burning. There
was no one to be seen. However, Michael was not mistaken. Suddenly a
dreadful growling was heard, and then another report.

"A bear;" cried Michael, who could not mistake the growling. "Nadia;
Nadia!" And drawing his cutlass from his belt, Michael bounded round the
buttress behind which the young girl had promised to wait.

The pines, completely enveloped in flames, threw a wild glare on the