Platoff travelled very swiftly, and in state: he himself sat in the
calash, and on the box sat two Cossacks of the Imperial Suite[20] with
_nagaikas_,[21] one on each side of the coachman, whom they belabored
unmercifully, so that he should drive at a gallop. And if one of these
Cossacks fell into a doze, Platoff kicked him out of the calash,
and they drove on harder than ever. These means of encouragement
operated so efficaciously that it was impossible to bring the horses
to a halt at a single posting-station, and they always over-ran the
stopping-place by a hundred leaps. Then the Suite-Cossack would work
upon the coachman in the opposite quarter again, and they would return
to the entrance.
And in this same fashion did they roll into Tula; at first they flew a
hundred leaps beyond the Moscow barrier, and then the Cossack worked
upon the coachman in the opposite quarter, with his nagaika, and fresh
horses were put in at the porch.
Platoff did not alight from the calash himself, but merely commanded
a Suite-Cossack to bring to him, as speedily as possible, the
master-workman with whom he had left the flea.
One Suite-Cossack ran to make them fetch the work which was to put the
English to shame, as quickly as possible, and his Cossack had barely
departed when Platoff despatched after him courier after courier, that
all possible haste might be made.
When he had sent off all the Cossacks of the Suite on the run, he
began to despatch simple members of the curious public, and even
thrust his own legs out of the calash in his impatience, and was on the
point of rushing off himself, and fairly gnashed his teeth--everything
seemed so slow to him.
Such, at that time, was the demand that everything should be very
quick and exact, that not a single moment might be wasted to Russian
usefulness.