ence
the current was changed to a regular torrent, rendering the passage
difficult enough. A swimmer could not have crossed, however powerful;
and even in a ferryboat there would be some danger.

But Michael and Nadia, determined to brave all perils whatever they
might be, did not dream of shrinking from this one. Michael proposed
to his young companion that he should cross first, embarking in the
ferryboat with the tarantass and horses, as he feared that the weight of
this load would render it less safe. After landing the carriage he would
return and fetch Nadia.

The girl refused. It would be the delay of an hour, and she would not,
for her safety alone, be the cause of it.

The embarkation was made not without difficulty, for the banks were
partly flooded and the boat could not get in near enough. However, after
half an hour's exertion, the boatmen got the tarantass and the three
horses on board. The passengers embarked also, and they shoved off.

For a few minutes all went well. A little way up the river the current
was broken by a long point projecting from the bank, and forming an eddy
easily crossed by the boat. The two boatmen propelled their barge with
long poles, which they handled cleverly; but as they gained the middle
of the stream it grew deeper and deeper, until at last they could only
just reach the bottom. The ends of the poles were only a foot above the
water, which rendered their use difficult. Michael and Nadia, seated
in the stern of the boat, and always in dread of a delay, watched the
boatmen with some uneasiness.

"Look out!" cried one of them to his comrade.

The shout was occasioned by the new direction the boat was rapidly
taking. It had got into the direct current and was being swept down the
river. By diligent use of the poles, putting the ends in a series of
notches cut below the gunwale, the boatmen managed to keep the craft
against the stream, and slowly urged it in a slanting direction towards
the right bank.

They calculated on reaching it some five or six versts below the landing
place; but, after all, that would not matter so long as men and beasts
could disembark without accident. The two stout boatmen, stimulated
moreover by the promise of double fare, did not doubt of succeeding in
this difficult passage of the Irtych.

But they reckoned without an accident which they were powerless to
prevent, and neither their zeal nor their skill-fulness could, under the
circumstances,