rectly menaced.

Michael Strogoff, although exceedingly anxious for news, could ascertain
nothing at this place. It would have been rather to him that the
Governor would have addressed himself had he known who the pretended
merchant of Irkutsk really was. Kamsk, in fact, by its very situation
seemed to be outside the Siberian world and the grave events which
troubled it.

Besides, Michael Strogoff showed himself little, if at all. To be
unperceived was not now enough for him: he would have wished to be
invisible. The experience of the past made him more and more circumspect
in the present and the future. Therefore he secluded himself, and not
caring to traverse the streets of the village, he would not even leave
the inn at which he had halted.

As for his horse, he did not even think of exchanging him for another
animal. He had become accustomed to this brave creature. He knew to what
extent he could rely upon him. In buying him at Omsk he had been lucky,
and in taking him to the postmaster the generous mujik had rendered
him a great service. Besides, if Michael Strogoff had already become
attached to his horse, the horse himself seemed to become inured, by
degrees, to the fatigue of such a journey, and provided that he got
several hours of repose daily, his rider might hope that he would carry
him beyond the invaded provinces.

So, during the evening and night of the 2nd of August, Michael Strogoff
remained confined to his inn, at the entrance of the town; which was
little frequented and out of the way of the importunate and curious.

Exhausted with fatigue, he went to bed after having seen that his horse
lacked nothing; but his sleep was broken. What he had seen since his
departure from Moscow showed him the importance of his mission. The
rising was an extremely serious one, and the treachery of Ogareff made
it still more formidable. And when his eyes fell upon the letter bearing
upon it the authority of the imperial seal--the letter which, no
doubt, contained the remedy for so many evils, the safety of all this
war-ravaged country--Michael Strogoff felt within himself a fierce
desire to dash on across the steppe, to accomplish the distance which
separated him from Irkutsk as the crow would fly it, to be an eagle that
he might overtop all obstacles, to be a hurricane that he might sweep
through the air at a hundred versts an hour, and to be at last face
to face with the Grand Duke, and to exclaim: "Your highness,