sharp frost. The fugitives suffered cruelly, having no
other shelter than a few branches of birch. They cowered down together,
endeavoring to keep each other warm, the temperature being now ten
degrees below freezing point. The wind, though slight, having passed
over the snow-clad mountains of the east, pierced them through and
through.

Michael and Nadia, lying in the afterpart of the raft, bore this
increase of suffering without complaint. Jolivet and Blount, placed near
them, stood these first assaults of the Siberian winter as well as they
could. No one now spoke, even in a low voice. Their situation entirely
absorbed them. At any moment an incident might occur, which they could
not escape unscathed.

For a man who hoped soon to accomplish his mission, Michael was
singularly calm. Even in the gravest conjunctures, his energy had
never abandoned him. He already saw the moment when he would be at
last allowed to think of his mother, of Nadia, of himself! He now only
dreaded one final unhappy chance; this was, that the raft might be
completely barred by ice before reaching Irkutsk. He thought but of
this, determined beforehand, if necessary, to attempt some bold stroke.

Restored by a few hours' rest, Nadia had regained the physical energy
which misery had sometimes overcome, although without ever having shaken
her moral energy. She thought, too, that if Michael had to make any
fresh effort to attain his end, she must be there to guide him. But in
proportion as she drew nearer to Irkutsk, the image of her father rose
more and more clearly before her mind. She saw him in the invested town,
far from those he loved, but, as she never doubted, struggling against
the invaders with all the spirit of his patriotism. In a few hours, if
Heaven favored them, she would be in his arms, giving him her mother's
last words, and nothing should ever separate them again. If the term of
Wassili Fedor's exile should never come to an end, his daughter would
remain exiled with him. Then, by a natural transition, she came back
to him who would have enabled her to see her father once more, to that
generous companion, that "brother," who, the Tartars driven back, would
retake the road to Moscow, whom she would perhaps never meet again!

As to Alcide Jolivet and Harry Blount, they had one and the same
thought, which was, that the situation was extremely dramatic, and that,
well worked up, it would furnish a most deeply interesting article.