Michael Strogoff | Page 5

Czar.

CHAPTER II
RUSSIANS AND TARTARS
THE Czar had not so suddenly left the ball-room of the New Palace,
when the fete he was giving to the civil and military authorities and
principal people of Moscow was at the height of its brilliancy, without
ample cause; for he had just received information that serious events
were taking place beyond the frontiers of the Ural. It had become
evident that a formidable rebellion threatened to wrest the Siberian
provinces from the Russian crown.
Asiatic Russia, or Siberia, covers a superficial area of 1,790,208 square
miles, and contains nearly two millions of inhabitants. Extending from
the Ural Mountains, which separate it from Russia in Europe, to the
shores of the Pacific Ocean, it is bounded on the south by Turkestan
and the Chinese Empire; on the north by the Arctic Ocean, from the
Sea of Kara to Behring's Straits. It is divided into several governments
or provinces, those of Tobolsk, Yeniseisk, Irkutsk, Omsk, and Yakutsk;
contains two districts, Okhotsk and Kamtschatka; and possesses two
countries, now under the Muscovite dominion-- that of the Kirghiz and
that of the Tshouktshes. This immense extent of steppes, which
includes more than one hundred and ten degrees from west to east, is a
land to which criminals and political offenders are banished.
Two governor-generals represent the supreme authority of the Czar
over this vast country. The higher one resides at Irkutsk, the far capital
of Eastern Siberia. The River Tchouna separates the two Siberias.

No rail yet furrows these wide plains, some of which are in reality
extremely fertile. No iron ways lead from those precious mines which
make the Siberian soil far richer below than above its surface. The
traveler journeys in summer in a kibick or telga; in winter, in a sledge.
An electric telegraph, with a single wire more than eight thousand
versts in length, alone affords communication between the western and
eastern frontiers of Siberia. On issuing from the Ural, it passes through
Ekaterenburg, Kasirnov, Tioumen, Ishim, Omsk, Elamsk, Kolyvan,
Tomsk, Krasnoiarsk, Nijni-Udinsk, Irkutsk, Verkne-Nertschink,
Strelink, Albazine, Blagowstenks, Radde, Orlomskaya,
Alexandrowskoe, and Nikolaevsk; and six roubles and nineteen
copecks are paid for every word sent from one end to the other. From
Irkutsk there is a branch to Kiatka, on the Mongolian frontier; and from
thence, for thirty copecks a word, the post conveys the dispatches to
Pekin in a fortnight.
It was this wire, extending from Ekaterenburg to Nikolaevsk, which
had been cut, first beyond Tomsk, and then between Tomsk and
Kolyvan.
This was why the Czar, to the communication made to him for the
second time by General Kissoff, had answered by the words, "A courier
this moment!"
The Czar remained motionless at the window for a few moments, when
the door was again opened. The chief of police appeared on the
threshold.
"Enter, General," said the Czar briefly, "and tell me all you know of
Ivan Ogareff."
"He is an extremely dangerous man, sire," replied the chief of police.
"He ranked as colonel, did he not?"
"Yes, sire."

"Was he an intelligent officer?"
"Very intelligent, but a man whose spirit it was impossible to subdue;
and possessing an ambition which stopped at nothing, he became
involved in secret intrigues, and was degraded from his rank by his
Highness the Grand Duke, and exiled to Siberia."
"How long ago was that?"
"Two years since. Pardoned after six months of exile by your majesty's
favor, he returned to Russia."
"And since that time, has he not revisited Siberia?"
"Yes, sire; but he voluntarily returned there," replied the chief of police,
adding, and slightly lowering his voice, "there was a time, sire, when
NONE returned from Siberia."
"Well, whilst I live, Siberia is and shall be a country whence men CAN
return."
The Czar had the right to utter these words with some pride, for often,
by his clemency, he had shown that Russian justice knew how to
pardon.
The head of the police did not reply to this observation, but it was
evident that he did not approve of such half-measures. According to his
idea, a man who had once passed the Ural Mountains in charge of
policemen, ought never again to cross them. Now, it was not thus under
the new reign, and the chief of police sincerely deplored it. What! no
banishment for life for other crimes than those against social order!
What! political exiles returning from Tobolsk, from Yakutsk, from
Irkutsk! In truth, the chief of police, accustomed to the despotic
sentences of the ukase which formerly never pardoned, could not
understand this mode of governing. But he was silent, waiting until the
Czar should interrogate him further. The questions were not long in
coming.

"Did not Ivan Ogareff," asked the Czar, "return to Russia a second time,
after that