Since the evening before, aides-decamp, leaving the governor's palace, galloped in every direction.

An unusual movement was going forward which a serious state of affairs could alone account for.

There were innumerable couriers on the roads both to Wladimir and to the Ural Mountains.

The exchange of telegraphic dispatches with Moscow was incessant.
Michael Strogoff found himself in the central square when the report spread that the head of police had been summoned by a courier to the palace of the governor-general.

An important dispatch from Moscow, it was said, was the cause of it.
"The fair is to be closed," said one.
"The regiment of Nijni-Novgorod has received the route," declared another.
"They say that the Tartars menace Tomsk!" "Here is the head of police!" was shouted on every side.