insult Michael turned deadly pale. His hands moved convulsively
as if he would have knocked the brute down. But by a tremendous effort
he mastered himself. A duel! it was more than a delay; it was perhaps
the failure of his mission. It would be better to lose some hours. Yes;
but to swallow this affront!

"Will you fight now, coward?" repeated the traveler, adding coarseness
to brutality.

"No," answered Michael, without moving, but looking the other straight
in the face.

"The horses this moment," said the man, and left the room.

The postmaster followed him, after shrugging his shoulders and bestowing
on Michael a glance of anything but approbation.

The effect produced on the reporters by this incident was not to
Michael's advantage. Their discomfiture was visible. How could this
strong young man allow himself to be struck like that and not demand
satisfaction for such an insult? They contented themselves with bowing
to him and retired, Jolivet remarking to Harry Blount

"I could not have believed that of a man who is so skillful in finishing
up Ural Mountain bears. Is it the case that a man can be courageous at
one time and a coward at another? It is quite incomprehensible."

A moment afterwards the noise of wheels and whip showed that the berlin,
drawn by the tarantass' horses, was driving rapidly away from the
post-house.

Nadia, unmoved, and Michael, still quivering, remained alone in the
room. The courier of the Czar, his arms crossed over his chest was
seated motionless as a statue. A color, which could not have been the
blush of shame, had replaced the paleness on his countenance.

Nadia did not doubt that powerful reasons alone could have allowed him
to suffer so great a humiliation from such a man. Going up to him as he
had come to her in the police-station at Nijni-Novgorod:

"Your hand, brother," said she.

And at the same time her hand, with an almost maternal gesture, wiped
away a tear which sprang to her companion's eye.

CHAPTER XIII DUTY BEFORE EVERYTHING

NADIA, with the clear perception of a right-minded woman, guessed that
some secret motive directed all Michael Strogoff's actions; that he,
for a reason unknown to her, did not belong to himself; and that in
this instance especially he had heroically sacrificed to duty even his
resentment at the gross injury he had received.

Nadia, therefore, asked no explanation from Michael. Had not the hand
which she had extended to him alr