on
smashed to pieces in the ice. The osier ropes would break, the fir
trunks torn asunder would drift under the hard crust, and the unhappy
people would have no refuge but the ice blocks themselves. Then, when
day came, they would be seen by the Tartars, and massacred without
mercy!

Michael returned to the spot where Nadia was waiting for him. He
approached the girl, took her hand, and put to her the invariable
question: "Nadia, are you ready?" to which she replied as usual, "I am
ready!"

For a few versts more the raft continued to drift amongst the floating
ice. Should the river narrow, it would soon form an impassable barrier.
Already they seemed to drift slower. Every moment they encountered
severe shocks or were compelled to make detours; now, to avoid running
foul of a block, there to enter a channel, of which it was necessary
to take advantage. At length the stoppages became still more alarming.
There were only a few more hours of night. Could the fugitives not reach
Irkutsk by five o'clock in the morning, they must lose all hope of ever
getting there at all.

At half-past one, notwithstanding all efforts, the raft came up against
a thick barrier and stuck fast. The ice, which was drifting down behind
it, pressed it still closer, and kept it motionless, as though it had
been stranded.

At this spot the Angara narrowed, it being half its usual breadth.
This was the cause of the accumulation of ice, which became gradually
soldered together, under the double influence of the increased pressure
and of the cold. Five hundred feet beyond, the river widened again, and
the blocks, gradually detaching themselves from the floe, continued to
drift towards Irkutsk. It was probable that had the banks not narrowed,
the barrier would not have formed. But the misfortune was irreparable,
and the fugitives must give up all hope of attaining their object.

Had they possessed the tools usually employed by whalers to cut channels
through the ice-fields--had they been able to get through to where the
river widened--they might have been saved. But they had nothing which
could make the least incision in the ice, hard as granite in the
excessive frost. What were they to do?

At that moment several shots on the right bank startled the unhappy
fugitives. A shower of balls fell on the raft. The devoted passengers
had been seen. Immediately afterwards shots were heard fired from the
left bank. The fugitives, taken between two fires,