"Never."
"Who do you think he was?"
"A man who knows how to make himself obeyed."
Michael fixed his piercing gaze upon the Siberian, but the other did not quail before it.
"Do you dare to judge me?" exclaimed Michael.
"Yes," answered the Siberian, "there are some things even a plain merchant cannot receive without returning."
"Blows?"
"Blows, young man. I am of an age and strength to tell you so."
Michael went up to the postmaster and laid his two powerful hands on his shoulders.
Then in a peculiarly calm tone, "Be off, my friend," said he: "be off! I could kill you."
The postmaster understood. "I like him better for that," he muttered and retired without another word.
At eight o'clock the next morning, the 24th of July, three strong horses were harnessed to the tarantass. Michael Strogoff and Nadia took their places, and Ichim, with its disagreeable remembrances, was soon left far behind.
At the different relays at which they stopped during the day Strogoff ascertained that the berlin still preceded them on the road to Irkutsk, and that the traveler, as hurried as they were, never lost a minute in pursuing his way across the steppe.
At four o'clock in the evening they reached Abatskaia, fifty miles farther on, where the Ichim, one of the principal affluents of the Irtych, had to be crossed. This passage was rather more difficult than that of the Tobol. Indeed the current of the Ichim was very rapid just at that place. During the Siberian winter, the rivers being all frozen to a thickness of several feet, they are easily practicable, and the traveler even crosses them without being aware of the fact, for their beds have disappeared under the snowy sheet spread uniformly over the steppe; but in summer the difficulties of crossing are sometimes great.
In fact, two hours were taken up in making the passage of the Ichim, which much exasperated Michael, especially as the boatmen gave them alarming news of the Tartar invasion. Some of Feofar-Khan's scouts had already ap-
