At this moment we heard behind us the bells of a troïka which was
rapidly overtaking us.
"A courier's bell," said my driver. "There's one such for every
station."
And, in fact, the bell of the courier's troïka, the sound of which
now came clearly to me on the wind, was peculiarly beautiful,--clear,
sonorous, deep, and jangling a little. As I then knew, this was a
huntsman's team; three bells,--one large one in the centre, with the
_crimson_ tone, as it is called, and two small ones tuned in thirds.
The sound of this triad and the tinkling fifth, ringing through the
air, was extraordinarily effective and strangely pleasant in this dark
desert steppe.
"The posht is coming," said my driver when the foremost of the three
troikas drew up in line with ours. "Well, how is the road? is it
possible to go on?" he cried to the last of the drivers. But the
yamshchík only shouted to his horses, and made no reply.
The sound of the bells quickly died away on the wind, almost as soon as
the post-team passed us.
Of course my driver felt ashamed.
"Well, you shall go, bárin," he said to me. "People have made their way
through, now their tracks will be fresh."
I agreed; and once more we faced the wind, and began to crawl along
on the deep snow. I kept my eyes on one side on the road, so that we
should not get off the track that had been made by the other sledges.
For two versts the tracks were clearly visible, then there began to
be only a slight irregularity where the runners had gone; and soon
I really could no longer distinguish whether it was the track, or
merely a layer of snow heaped up. My eyes grew weary of gazing at the
monotonous stretch of snow under the runners, and I began to look
ahead. The third verst-post we had already seen, but the fourth we
could not find at all. As before, we went in the teeth of the wind, and
with the wind, and to the right and to the left; and finally we reached
such a state that the driver declared that we must have turned off to
the right. I declared that we must have turned off to the left, and
Alyoshka was sure that we ought to go back. Again we stopped a number
of times, the driver uncoiled his long legs, and crawled along trying
to find the road. But all in vain. I also got out once to see whether
it were the road or something else that attracted my attention. But
I had scarcely taken six steps with difficulty against the wind, and
convinced myself that we were surrounded by the same monotonous white
heaps of snow, and that the road existed only in my imagination, when
I lost sight of the sledge. I shouted, "Yamshchík! Alyoshka!" but my
voice,--I felt how the wind tore it right out of my mouth, and carried
it in a twinkling far from me. I went in the direction where the sledge
had been--the sledge was not there. I went to the right--not there
either. I am ashamed to recollect what a loud, penetrating, and even
rather despairing voice, I summoned to shout once more, "Yamshchík!"
and there he was two steps away. His black figure, with his whip, and
his huge cap hanging down on one side, suddenly loomed up before me.
He led me to the sledge.
"Thank the Lord, it's still warm!" said he. "To perish with the
cold--awful! Great heavens!"[3]
"Let the horses find their own way, let us turn back," said I, as I
took my place in the sledge. "Won't they take us back? hey, driver?"
"They ought to."
He gave the horses the reins, cracked his whip three times over the
saddle of the shaft-horse, and again we started off at hap-hazard. We
went for half an hour. Suddenly before us again I heard the well-known
bell of the hunting establishment, and the other two. But now they were
coming toward us. It was the same three troikas, which had already
deposited the mail, and, with a change of horses attached behind, were
returning to the station. The courier's troïka, with powerful horses
with the hunting-bell, quickly dashed ahead. A single driver sat in it
on the driver's seat, and was shouting vigorously. Behind him, in the
middle one of the empty troikas, were two other drivers; and their loud
and hilarious talk could be heard. One of them was smoking a pipe; and
the spark, brightened by the wind, lighted up a part of his face.
As I looked at them, I felt ashamed that I was afraid to go on; and my
driver doubtless had the same feeling, because we both said with one
voice, "Let us follow them."
[Footnote 3: _gospodi-bátiushka._]