erformed under the lashes and spear-points of the soldiers, proved
fatal to many, 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, 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, parched by their painful march, most
needed. To find a stream they must have diverged fifty versts eastward,
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, 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, 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, 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, until a prick from a soldier's lance obliged him to resume 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," and indeed he was right. As he observed
the numerous detachments which scoured the plain on the convoy's flanks,
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