ter.)

"This letter shall be delivered to His Highness, the Grand Duke."

"Go, thou, for God, for the Czar, and for your native land."

That very night Michael Strogoff started on his perilous journey. His
path was constantly beset with dangers, but not until he reached Omsk
did his greatest trial come. He had feared that he might see his mother
in passing through the town. They stopped only for dinner and the danger
was almost past, when, just as they were leaving the posting-house to
renew their journey, suddenly a cry made him tremble--a cry which
penetrated to the depths of his soul--and these two words rushed into
his ear, "My son!" His mother, the old woman Marfa, was before him!
Trembling she smiled upon him and stretched forth her arms to him.
Michael Strogoff stepped forward; he was about to throw himself--when
the thought of duty, the serious danger to himself and mother, in this
unfortunate meeting, stopped him, and so great was his self-command that
not a muscle of his face moved. There were twenty people in the public
room, and among them were perhaps spies, and was it not known that the
son of Marfa Strogoff belonged to the Corps of Couriers to the Czar?
Michael Strogoff did not move.

"Michael!" cried his mother.

"Who are you, my good woman?"

"Who am I? Dost thou no longer know thy mother?"

"You are mistaken; a resemblance deceives you."

Marfa went up to him, and looking straight into his eyes, said, "Art
thou not the son of Peter and Marfa Strogoff?"

Michael would have given his life to have locked his mother in his arms.
But if he yielded now, it was all over with him, with her, with his
mission, with his oath! Completely master of himself, he closed his
eyes that he might not see the inexpressible anguish of his mother.

"I do not know, in truth, what it is you say, my good woman."

"Michael!"

"My name is not Michael. I never was your son! I am Nicholas Horparoff,
a merchant of Irkutsk," and suddenly he left the room, while for the
last time the words echoed in his ears.

"My son! My son!"

Michael Strogoff remembered--"For God, for the Czar, and for my native
land," and he had by a desperate effort gone. He did not see his old
mother, who had fallen back almost inanimate on a bench. But when the
Postmaster hastened to assist her, the aged woman raised herself.
Suddenly the thought occurred to her: She denied by her own son! It was
impossible! As for being herself deceived, it wa