to stop the invasion?"

"Yes, your Highness, but the movements have failed."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that Ichim, Omsk, Tomsk, to speak only of the more important
towns of the two Siberias, have been successively occupied by the
soldiers of Feofar-Khan."

"But there has been fighting? Have not our Cossacks met the Tartars?"

"Several times, your Highness."

"And they were repulsed?"

"They were not in sufficient force to oppose the enemy."

"Where did the encounters take place?"

"At Kolyvan, at Tomsk." Until now, Ogareff had only spoken the truth,
but, in the hope of troubling the defenders of Irkutsk by exaggerating
the defeats, he added, "And a third time before Krasnoiarsk."

"And what of this last engagement?" asked the Grand Duke, through whose
compressed lips the words could scarcely pass.

"It was more than an engagement, your Highness," answered Ogareff; "it
was a battle."

"A battle?"

"Twenty thousand Russians, from the frontier provinces and the
government of Tobolsk, engaged with a hundred and fifty thousand
Tartars, and, notwithstanding their courage, were overwhelmed."

"You lie!" exclaimed the Grand Duke, endeavoring in vain to curb his
passion.

"I speak the truth, your Highness," replied Ivan Ogareff coldly. "I
was present at the battle of Krasnoiarsk, and it was there I was made
prisoner!"

The Grand Duke grew calmer, and by a significant gesture he gave Ogareff
to understand that he did not doubt his veracity. "What day did this
battle of Krasnoiarsk take place?" he asked.

"On the 2d of September."

"And now all the Tartar troops are concentrated here?"

"All."

"And you estimate them?"

"At about four hundred thousand men."

Another exaggeration of Ogareff's in the estimate of the Tartar army,
with the same object as before.

"And I must not expect any help from the West provinces?" asked the
Grand Duke.

"None, your Highness, at any rate before the end of the winter."

"Well, hear this, Michael Strogoff. Though I must expect no help either
from the East or from the West, even were these barbarians six hundred
thousand strong, I will never give up Irkutsk!"

Ogareff's evil eye slightly contracted. The traitor thought to himself
that the brother of the Czar did not reckon the result of treason.

The Grand Duke, who was of a nervous temperament, had great difficulty
in keeping calm whilst hearing this disastrous news. He walked to and
fro in the room, under