When Ivan Ogareff appeared, the great dignitaries remained seated on their gold-embroidered cushions; but Feofar rose from a rich divan which occupied the back part of the tent, the ground being hidden under the thick velvet-pile of a Bokharian carpet.
The Emir approached Ogareff and gave him a kiss, the meaning of which he could not mistake. This kiss made the lieutenant chief of the council, and placed him temporarily above the khodja.
Then Feofar spoke. “I have no need to question you,” said he; “speak, Ivan. You will find here ears very ready to listen to you.”
“Takhsir,” answered Ogareff, “this is what I have to make known to you.” He spoke in the Tartar language, giving to his phrases the emphatic turn which distinguishes the languages of the Orientals. “Takhsir, this is not the time for unnecessary words. What I have done at the head of your troops, you know. The lines of the Ichim and the Irtych are now in our power; and the Turcoman horsemen can bathe their horses in the now Tartar waters. The Kirghiz hordes rose at the voice of Feofar-Khan. You can now push your troops towards the east, and where the sun rises, or towards the west, where he sets.”
“And if I march with the sun?” asked the Emir, without his countenance betraying any of his thoughts.
“To march with the sun,” answered Ogareff, “is to throw yourself towards Europe; it is to conquer rapidly the Siberian provinces of Tobolsk as far as the Ural Mountains.”
“And if I go to meet this luminary of the heavens?”
“It is to subdue to the Tartar dominion, with Irkutsk, the richest countries of Central Asia.”
“But the armies of the Sultan of St. Petersburg?” said Feofar-Khan, designating the Emperor of Russia by this strange title.
“You have nothing to fear from them,” replied Ivan Ogareff. “The invasion has been sudden; and before the Russian army can succor them, Irkutsk or Tobolsk will have fallen into your power. The Czar’s troops have been overwhelmed at Kolyvan, as they will be everywhere where yours meet them.”