hildren from the brutality of the Tartars by sending them away into the
Northern provinces. He himself had stayed in his parish up to the last
moment; then he was obliged to fly, and, the Irkutsk road being stopped,
had come to Lake Baikal.

These priests, grouped in the forward part of the raft, prayed at
regular intervals, raising their voices in the silent night, and at the
end of each sentence of their prayer, the "Slava Bogu," Glory to God!
issued from their lips.

No incident took place during the night. Nadia remained in a sort of
stupor, and Michael watched beside her; sleep only overtook him at long
intervals, and even then his brain did not rest. At break of day, the
raft, delayed by a strong breeze, which counteracted the course of the
current, was still forty versts from the mouth of the Angara. It seemed
probable that the fugitives could not reach it before three or four
o'clock in the evening. This did not trouble them; on the contrary, for
they would then descend the river during the night, and the darkness
would also favor their entrance into Irkutsk.

The only anxiety exhibited at times by the old boatman was concerning
the formation of ice on the surface of the water. The night had been
excessively cold; pieces of ice could be seen drifting towards the West.
Nothing was to be dreaded from these, since they could not drift into
the Angara, having already passed the mouth; but pieces from the Eastern
end of the lake might be drawn by the current between the banks of the
river; this would cause difficulty, possibly delay, and perhaps even an
insurmountable obstacle which would stop the raft.

Michael therefore took immense interest in ascertaining what was the
state of the lake, and whether any large number of ice blocks appeared.
Nadia being now awake, he questioned her often, and she gave him an
account of all that was going on.

Whilst the blocks were thus drifting, curious phenomena were taking
place on the surface of the Baikal. Magnificent jets, from springs of
boiling water, shot up from some of those artesian wells which Nature
has bored in the very bed of the lake. These jets rose to a great height
and spread out in vapor, which was illuminated by the solar rays, and
almost immediately condensed by the cold. This curious sight would have
assuredly amazed a tourist traveling in peaceful times on this Siberian
sea.

At four in the evening, the mouth of the Angara was signaled by the old
boat