The palace being open to all, Michael and Nadia entered without difficulty. In the confusion, no one remarked them, although their garments were dripping. A crowd of officers coming for orders, and of soldiers running to execute them, filled the great hall on the ground floor. There, in a sudden eddy of the confused multitude, Michael and the young girl were separated from each other.
Nadia ran distracted through the passages, calling her companion, and asking to be taken to the Grand Duke. A door into a room flooded with light opened before her. She entered, and found herself suddenly face to face with the man whom she had met at Ichim, whom she had seen at Tomsk; face to face with the one whose villainous hand would an instant later betray the town!
"Ivan Ogareff!" she cried.
On hearing his name pronounced, the wretch started. His real name known, all his plans would be balked. There was but one thing to be done:
to kill the person who had just uttered it. Ogareff darted at Nadia;but the girl, a knife in her hand, retreated against the wall, determined to defend herself.
"Ivan Ogareff!" again cried Nadia, knowing well that so detested a name would soon bring her help.
"Ah! Be silent!" hissed out the traitor between his clenched teeth.
"Ivan Ogareff!" exclaimed a third time the brave young girl, in a voice to which hate had added ten-fold strength.
Mad with fury, Ogareff, drawing a dagger from his belt, again rushed at Nadia and compelled her to retreat into a corner of the room.
Her last hope appeared gone, when the villain, suddenly lifted by an irresistible force, was dashed to the ground.
"Michael!" cried Nadia.
It was Michael Strogoff. Michael had heard Nadia's call.
Guided by her voice, he had just in time reached Ivan Ogareff's room, and entered by the open door.
"Fear nothing, Nadia," said he, placing himself between her and Ogareff.
"Ah!" cried the girl, "take care, brother! The traitor is armed!
He can see!"
Ogareff rose, and, thinking he had an immeasurable advantage over the blind man leaped upon him. But with one hand, the blind man grasped the arm of his enemy, seized his weapon, and hurled him again to the ground.
Pale with rage and shame, Ogareff remembered that he wore a sword.
He drew it and returned a second time to the charge.
A blind man! Ogareff had only to deal with a blind man!
He was more than a match for him!
Nadia, terrified at the danger which threatened her companion ran to the door calling for help!
"Close the door, Nadia!" said Michael. "Call no one, and leave me alone!
The Czar's courier has nothing to fear to-day from this villain!
Let him come on, if he dares! I am ready for him."In the mean time, Ogareff, gathering himself together like a tiger about to spring, uttered not a word. The noise of his footsteps, his very breathing, he endeavored to conceal from the ear of the blind man.
His object was to strike before his opponent was aware of his approach, to strike him with a deadly blow.
Nadia, terrified and at the same time confident, watched this terrible scene with involuntary admiration. Michael's calm bearing seemed to have inspired her. Michael's sole weapon was his Siberian knife.
He did not see his adversary armed with a sword, it is true; but Heaven's support seemed to be afforded him. How, almost without stirring, did he always face the point of the sword?
Ivan Ogareff watched his strange adversary with visible anxiety.
His superhuman calm had an effect upon him. In vain, appealing to his reason, did he tell himself that in so unequal a combat all the advantages were on his side. The immobility of the blind man froze him.
He had settled on the place where he would strike his victim.
He had fixed upon it! What, then, hindered him from putting an end to his blind antagonist?
At last, with a spring he drove his sword full at Michael's breast.
An imperceptible movement of the blind man's knife turned aside the blow.
Michael had not been touched, and coolly he awaited a second attack.
Cold drops stood on Ogareff's brow. He drew back a step, then again leaped forward. But as had the first, this second attempt failed.
The knife had simply parried the blow from the traitor's useless sword.
Mad with rage and terror before this living statue, he gazed into the wide-open eyes of the blind man.
Those eyes which seemed to pierce to the bottom of his soul, and yet which did not, could not, see--exercised a sort of dreadful fascination over him.
All at once, Ogareff uttered a cry. A sudden light flashed across his brain. "He sees!" he exclaimed, "he sees!"And like a wild beast trying to retreat into its den, step by step, terrified, he drew back to the end of the room.
Then the statue became animated, the blind man walked straight up to Ivan Ogareff, and placing himself right before him, "Yes, I see!"said he. "I see the mark of the knout which I gave you, traitor and coward! I see the place where I am about to strike you!
Defend your life! It is a duel I deign to offer you!
My knife against your sword!"
"He sees!" said Nadia. "Gracious Heaven, is it possible!"Ogareff felt that he was lost. But mustering all his courage, he sprang forward on his impassible adversary. The two blades crossed, but at a touch from Michael's knife, wielded in the hand of the Siberian hunter, the sword flew in splinters, and the wretch, stabbed to the heart, fell lifeless on the ground.
At the same moment, the door was thrown open. The Grand Duke, accompanied by some of his officers, appeared on the threshold.
The Grand Duke advanced. In the body lying on the ground, he recognized the man whom he believed to be the Czar's courier.
Then, in a threatening voice, "Who killed that man?" he asked.
"I," replied Michael.
One of the officers put a pistol to his temple, ready to fire.
"Your name?" asked the Grand Duke, before giving the order for his brains to be blown out.
"Your Highness," answered Michael, "ask me rather the name of the man who lies at your feet!""That man, I know him! He is a servant of my brother!
He is the Czar's courier!"
"That man, your Highness, is not a courier of the Czar! He is Ivan Ogareff!""Ivan Ogareff!" exclaimed the Grand Duke.
"Yes, Ivan the Traitor!"
"But who are you, then?"
"Michael Strogoff!"