ed by the burning liquid, and
melted like wax on the top of a furnace, the evaporated water escaping
in shrill hisses.

At the same moment, firing broke out on the North and South of the town.
The enemy's batteries discharged their guns at random. Several thousand
Tartars rushed to the assault of the earth-works. The houses on the
bank, built of wood, took fire in every direction. A bright light
dissipated the darkness of the night.

"At last!" said Ivan Ogareff.

He had good reason for congratulating himself. The diversion which he
had planned was terrible. The defenders of Irkutsk found themselves
between the attack of the Tartars and the fearful effects of fire. The
bells rang, and all the able-bodied of the population ran, some towards
the points attacked, and others towards the houses in the grasp of the
flames, which it seemed too probable would ere long envelop the whole
town.

The Gate of Bolchaia was nearly free. Only a very small guard had been
left there. And by the traitor's suggestion, and in order that the event
might be explained apart from him, as if by political hate, this small
guard had been chosen from the little band of exiles.

Ogareff re-entered his room, now brilliantly lighted by the flames from
the Angara; then he made ready to go out. But scarcely had he opened the
door, when a woman rushed into the room, her clothes drenched, her hair
in disorder.

"Sangarre!" exclaimed Ogareff, in the first moment of surprise, and not
supposing that it could be any other woman than the gypsy.

It was not Sangarre; it was Nadia!

At the moment when, floating on the ice, the girl had uttered a cry on
seeing the fire spreading along the current, Michael had seized her in
his arms, and plunged with her into the river itself to seek a refuge
in its depths from the flames. The block which bore them was not thirty
fathoms from the first quay of Irkutsk.

Swimming beneath the water, Michael managed to get a footing with Nadia
on the quay. Michael Strogoff had reached his journey's end! He was in
Irkutsk!

"To the governor's palace!" said he to Nadia.

In less than ten minutes, they arrived at the entrance to the palace.
Long tongues of flame from the Angara licked its walls, but were
powerless to set it on fire. Beyond the houses on the bank were in a
blaze.

The palace being open to all, Michael and Nadia entered without
difficulty. In the confusion, no one remarked them, although their
garments we