Easy to command, but not so easy to carry out! The mob surrounded them on all sides.
"Get down," she ordered her jäger, "and force a way through the people!"
The jäger, a gigantic young fellow, a Finlander, seized the foremost horse by the bridle, and, dealing out blows roundly with his other arm on the mujiks, thought to steer the carriage in this way through the crush. All very well; that kind of thing may do with the mujik, who is accustomed to the lash; but your thoroughbred has noble blood in his veins, and does not suffer himself to be led by the bridle. Violently shaking himself loose, the horse dealt the jäger such a blow on the head that he fell senseless to the ground.
"Oh, what are we to do now?" asked the Duchess, terror-stricken, bursting into tears.
"I know a way," said Bethsaba. "Have the leader led in the saddle."
"But who would venture to mount it?" asked the Duchess, wringing her hands.
"I will!" returned Bethsaba; "I am used to riding."
"Very well, then," said the Duchess.
Selfish to the last degree, she never considered that in order to reach the farthermost horse Bethsaba would have to wade through the icy water up to her knees, and in her light carriage-wrap expose herself to the bitter cold of the stormy night, and to the maddened populace, who, in the darkness and panic, recognized neither lord nor master. Also, in her emergency, Princess Ghedimin utterly forgot that Bethsaba was, moreover, a king's daughter, who had not been committed to her care to act as postilion for her.
So she merely said, "Very well, then."