“I swear it.”
“Michael Strogoff, take this letter. On it depends the safety of all Siberia, and perhaps the life of my brother, the Grand Duke.”
“This letter shall be delivered to His Highness, the Grand Duke.”
“Go, thou, for God, for the Czar, and for your native land.”
The courier saluted his sovereign and that very night set out to fulfill his perilous mission. All went well until he reached Omsk. Compelled to stop here for food and a change of horses, he was about to leave the posting house to continue his journey when suddenly a cry made him tremble—a cry which penetrated to the depths of his soul—and these two words rushed into his ear: “My son!”
His mother, the old woman, Marfa, was before him! Trembling, she smiled upon him and stretched forth her arms to him. Michael Strogoff stepped forward; he was about to throw himself—when the thought of duty, the serious danger to himself, and his mother, in this unfortunate meeting, stopped him, and so great was his self-command that not a muscle of his face moved. There were twenty people in the public room, and among them perhaps spies, and was it not known that the son of Marfa Strogoff belonged to the corps of Couriers to the Czar? Michael Strogoff did not move.
“Michael!” cried his mother.
“Who are you, my good woman?”
“Who am I? Dost thou no longer know thy mother?”