"I have no longer the right to think of them!" Michael Strogoff and the mujik soon arrived in the mercantile quarter of the lower town.

The surrounding earthwork had been destroyed in many places, and there were the breaches through which the marauders who followed the armies of Feofar-Khan had penetrated.

Within Omsk, in its streets and squares, the Tartar soldiers swarmed like ants; but it was easy to see that a hand of iron imposed upon them a discipline to which they were little accustomed.

They walked nowhere alone, but in armed groups, to defend themselves against surprise.
In the chief square, transformed into a camp, guarded by many sentries, 2,000 Tartars bivouacked.

The horses, picketed but still saddled, were ready to start at the first order.