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THE STEEL FLEA
VIII
Platoff travelled very swiftly, and in state: he himself sat in the calash, and on the box sat two Cossacks of the Imperial Suite[1] with nagaikas,[2] 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 overran the stopping-place by a hundred leaps. Then the Suite-Cossack would work upon the coachman in the oppo-
- ↑ By the transposition of a letter, the old armorer contrives to call them "whistle-Cossacks."
- ↑ Cossack whip—really, the Tatar whip used by the Cossacks, and all mountaineers, of the Tatar and Mongolian tribes. It is a short, thick, round leather lash, all of one size, without a tapering tip.
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