became the mark of
the Tartar sharpshooters. Several were wounded, although in the darkness
it was only by chance that they were hit.

"Come, Nadia," whispered Michael in the girl's ear.

Without making a single remark, "ready for anything," Nadia took
Michael's hand.

"We must cross the barrier," he said in a low tone. "Guide me, but let
no one see us leave the raft."

Nadia obeyed. Michael and she glided rapidly over the floe in the
obscurity, only broken now and again by the flashes from the muskets.
Nadia crept along in front of Michael. The shot fell around them like a
tempest of hail, and pattered on the ice. Their hands were soon covered
with blood from the sharp and rugged ice over which they clambered, but
still on they went.

In ten minutes, the other side of the barrier was reached. There
the waters of the Angara again flowed freely. Several pieces of ice,
detached gradually from the floe, were swept along in the current down
towards the town. Nadia guessed what Michael wished to attempt. One of
the blocks was only held on by a narrow strip.

"Come," said Nadia. And the two crouched on the piece of ice, which
their weight detached from the floe.

It began to drift. The river widened, the way was open. Michael and
Nadia heard the shots, the cries of distress, the yells of the Tartars.
Then, little by little, the sounds of agony and of ferocious joy grew
faint in the distance.

"Our poor companions!" murmured Nadia.

For half an hour the current hurried along the block of ice which bore
Michael and Nadia. They feared every moment that it would give
way beneath them. Swept along in the middle of the current, it was
unnecessary to give it an oblique direction until they drew near the
quays of Irkutsk. Michael, his teeth tight set, his ear on the strain,
did not utter a word. Never had he been so near his object. He felt that
he was about to attain it!

Towards two in the morning a double row of lights glittered on the dark
horizon in which were confounded the two banks of the Angara. On the
right hand were the lights of Irkutsk; on the left, the fires of the
Tartar camp.

Michael Strogoff was not more than half a verst from the town. "At
last!" he murmured.

But suddenly Nadia uttered a cry.

At the cry Michael stood up on the ice, which was wavering. His hand
was extended up the Angara. His face, on which a bluish light cast a
peculiar hue, became almost fearful to look at, and then, as if his