e a succession
of picturesque scenes. Here were high granite cliffs, there wild gorges,
down which rushed a torrent; sometimes appeared a clearing with a still
smoking village, then thick pine forests blazing. But though the Tartars
had left their traces on all sides, they themselves were not to be
seen as yet, for they were more especially massed at the approaches to
Irkutsk.

All this time the pilgrims were repeating their prayers aloud, and the
old boatman, shoving away the blocks of ice which pressed too near them,
imperturbably steered the raft in the middle of the rapid current of the
Angara.

CHAPTER XI BETWEEN TWO BANKS

BY eight in the evening, the country, as the state of the sky had
foretold, was enveloped in complete darkness. The moon being new had not
yet risen. From the middle of the river the banks were invisible. The
cliffs were confounded with the heavy, low-hanging clouds. At intervals
a puff of wind came from the east, but it soon died away in the narrow
valley of the Angara.

The darkness could not fail to favor in a considerable degree the plans
of the fugitives. Indeed, although the Tartar outposts must have
been drawn up on both banks, the raft had a good chance of passing
unperceived. It was not likely either that the besiegers would have
barred the river above Irkutsk, since they knew that the Russians could
not expect any help from the south of the province. Besides this, before
long Nature would herself establish a barrier, by cementing with frost
the blocks of ice accumulated between the two banks.

Perfect silence now reigned on board the raft. The voices of the
pilgrims were no longer heard. They still prayed, but their prayer was
but a murmur, which could not reach as far as either bank. The fugitives
lay flat on the platform, so that the raft was scarcely above the level
of the water. The old boatman crouched down forward among his men,
solely occupied in keeping off the ice blocks, a maneuver which was
performed without noise.

The drifting of the ice was a favorable circumstance so long as it did
not offer an insurmountable obstacle to the passage of the raft. If that
object had been alone on the water, it would have run a risk of being
seen, even in the darkness, but, as it was, it was confounded with these
moving masses, of all shapes and sizes, and the tumult caused by
the crashing of the blocks against each other concealed likewise any
suspicious noises.

There was a