the people of Kazan to come to his assistance.  Pugasceff again attacked him with embittered fury, and as he could not dislodge him he withdrew the remainder of his troops from Kazan and encamped on the plain.  The third day of the battle, fortune turned to the side of Pugasceff.  They fought for four hours, and Michelson was already surrounded, when the hero put himself at the head of his small army and made a desperate rush upon Pugasceff.

The insurrectionary forces were broken asunder.  They left 3,000 men on the battlefield, and 5,000 captives fell into the hands of the victors.

Kazan was free, but the Russian Empire was not so yet.

Pugasceff, trodden a hundred times to the ground, rose once more.  After his defeat at Kazan, he fled, not towards the interior of Siberia, but straight towards the heart of the Russian Empire—­towards Moscow.  Out of his army which was split asunder at Kazan he formed 100 battalions, and with a small number of these crossed the Volga.  Immediately he appeared on the opposite banks of the river, and the entire province was enkindled:  the peasantry rose in revolt against the aristocracy.  Within a district of 100 miles every castle was destroyed, and one town after the other opened its gates to the mock Czar.  The further he advanced the more his army increased and the faster his insurrectionary red flag travelled towards the gates of Moscow.  On their way the rebels occupied forts, pillaged and destroyed the towns, and the troops which were sent against them were captured.  Before the Fort of Zariczin an Imperial force challenged their advance.  In the ensuing battle, every Russian officer fell, and the entire force was captured.  Again Pugasceff had 25.000 men and a large number of guns, and his road would have been clear to Moscow if the ubiquitous Michelson had not been at his back!  This wonderful hero did not dread his opponents, however numerous, and like the panther which drives before him the herd of buffaloes, so he drove with his small body Pugasceff’s tremendous army.  The rebel felt that this man had a magic power over him, and that he was in league with fate.  Finally, he found a convenient place outside Sarepta, and here he awaited his opponent.  It is a height which a steep mountain footpath divides, and this path is intersected by another.  Pugasceff placed a portion of his best troops on the ascending path, whilst to the riff-raff he entrusted his two wings.  If Michelson had caught the bull by the horns with his ordinary tactics he ought to have cut through the little footpath leading to the steep road, and if he had succeeded then, the troops which were at the point of intersection would have fallen between two fires, from which they could not have escaped.  But Michelson changed his system of attack.  Whilst the bombardment was going on, he, together with Colonel Melin, rushed upon the wings of the opposing forces.  Pugasceff saw himself fall into the pit he had dug for others.  The rebel army, terror-struck, rushed towards his camp.  The forces that flew to his rescue fell at the mouth of his guns, and he had to cut his way through his own troops in order to escape from the trap.  This was his last battle.  He escaped with sixty men, crossed the Volga, and hid amongst the bushes of an uninhabited plain.