ary salute, not forgetting that he was a captain of
the couriers of the Czar, and retired.

Ogareff had so far played his unworthy part with success. The Grand
Duke's entire confidence had been accorded him. He could now betray it
whenever it suited him. He would inhabit the very palace. He would be
in the secret of all the operations for the defense of the town. He thus
held the situation in his hand, as it were. No one in Irkutsk knew him,
no one could snatch off his mask. He resolved therefore to set to work
without delay.

Indeed, time pressed. The town must be captured before the arrival of
the Russians from the North and East, and that was only a question of a
few days. The Tartars once masters of Irkutsk, it would not be easy
to take it again from them. At any rate, even if they were obliged to
abandon it later, they would not do so before they had utterly destroyed
it, and before the head of the Grand Duke had rolled at the feet of
Feofar-Khan.

Ivan Ogareff, having every facility for seeing, observing, and acting,
occupied himself the next day with visiting the ramparts. He was
everywhere received with cordial congratulations from officers,
soldiers, and citizens. To them this courier from the Czar was a link
which connected them with the empire.

Ogareff recounted, with an assurance which never failed, numerous
fictitious events of his journey. Then, with the cunning for which he
was noted, without dwelling too much on it at first, he spoke of the
gravity of the situation, exaggerating the success of the Tartars and
the numbers of the barbarian forces, as he had when speaking to
the Grand Duke. According to him, the expected succors would be
insufficient, if ever they arrived at all, and it was to be feared that
a battle fought under the walls of Irkutsk would be as fatal as the
battles of Kolyvan, Tomsk, and Krasnoiarsk.

Ogareff was not too free in these insinuations. He wished to allow
them to sink gradually into the minds of the defenders of Irkutsk.
He pretended only to answer with reluctance when much pressed with
questions. He always added that they must fight to the last man, and
blow up the town rather than yield!

These false statements would have done more harm had it been possible;
but the garrison and the population of Irkutsk were too patriotic to let
themselves be moved. Of all the soldiers and citizens shut up in this
town, isolated at the extremity of the Asiatic world, not one dreamed