who had approached unperceived.

"I am resting," replied Michael Strogoff.

"Do you mean to stay all night on the bench?"

"Yes, if I feel inclined to do so," answered Michael Strogoff, in a tone
somewhat too sharp for the simple merchant he wished to personate.

"Come forward, then, so I can see you," said the man.

Michael Strogoff, remembering that, above all, prudence was requisite,
instinctively drew back. "It is not necessary," he replied,
and calmly stepped back ten paces.

The man seemed, as Michael observed him well, to have the look
of a Bohemian, such as are met at fairs, and with whom contact,
either physical or moral, is unpleasant. Then, as he looked
more attentively through the dusk, he perceived, near the cottage,
a large caravan, the usual traveling dwelling of the Zingaris or gypsies,
who swarm in Russia wherever a few copecks can be obtained.

As the gypsy took two or three steps forward, and was about to interrogate
Michael Strogoff more closely, the door of the cottage opened.
He could just see a woman, who spoke quickly in a language which
Michael Strogoff knew to be a mixture of Mongol and Siberian.

"Another spy! Let him alone, and come to supper.
The papluka is waiting for you."