Michael, feeling that he was treading no
longer on powdery soil but on short grass.

"Yes, we must!" returned Nadia. "It was there, on the right, from which
the cry came!"

In a few minutes they were not more than half a verst from the river.
A second bark was heard, but, although more feeble, it was certainly
nearer. Nadia stopped.

"Yes!" said Michael. "It is Serko barking!... He has followed his
master!"

"Nicholas!" called the girl. Her cry was unanswered.

Michael listened. Nadia gazed over the plain illumined now and again
with electric light, but she saw nothing. And yet a voice was again
raised, this time murmuring in a plaintive tone, "Michael!"

Then a dog, all bloody, bounded up to Nadia.

It was Serko! Nicholas could not be far off! He alone could have
murmured the name of Michael! Where was he? Nadia had no strength to
call again. Michael, crawling on the ground, felt about with his hands.

Suddenly Serko uttered a fresh bark and darted towards a gigantic bird
which had swooped down. It was a vulture. When Serko ran towards it, it
rose, but returning struck at the dog. The latter leapt up at it. A blow
from the formidable beak alighted on his head, and this time Serko fell
back lifeless on the ground.

At the same moment a cry of horror escaped Nadia. "There... there!" she
exclaimed.

A head issued from the ground! She had stumbled against it in the
darkness.

Nadia fell on her knees beside it. Nicholas buried up to his neck,
according to the atrocious Tartar custom, had been left in the steppe to
die of thirst, and perhaps by the teeth of wolves or the beaks of birds
of prey!

Frightful torture for the victim imprisoned in the ground--the earth
pressed down so that he cannot move, his arms bound to his body like
those of a corpse in its coffin! The miserable wretch, living in the
mold of clay from which he is powerless to break out, can only long for
the death which is so slow in coming!

There the Tartars had buried their prisoner three days before! For three
days, Nicholas waited for the help which now came too late! The vultures
had caught sight of the head on a level with the ground, and for some
hours the dog had been defending his master against these ferocious
birds!

Michael dug at the ground with his knife to release his friend! The eyes
of Nicholas, which till then had been closed, opened.

He recognized Michael and Nadia. "Farewell, my friends!" he murmured. "I
am glad to h