The Czar had a six hours' start of his enemy, who fully expected to get over the ground quickly enough to come up with him. He had a strong Caucasian mare accustomed to do its twenty hours a day and then graze on any grass at hand. The rider was worthy of his horse; he, too, could content himself with a piece of bread and bacon, and take his four hours' sleep under any shrub by the wayside.
But the pursued went fast. Every day the Czar covered one hundred and fifty kilometres—i.e., a twenty hours' post—only allowing himself four hours' sleep. He was also accompanied by a large escort; but that was no impediment to Jakuskin's plan.
Once to stand face to face with him was all he needed. He knew the way in which the Czar travelled. First a picket of Cossacks, well in advance of the rest of the cortege, that the Czar might not be incommoded by the dust of their horses' feet. Then in the first carriage the Czar, easily to be recognized by his coachman, Ilias, his long beard fluttering like a couple of flags on either side the carriage. With him is his adjutant, Count Wolkonsky. The Count is a small, undersized man; the Czar a man of splendid physique—tall, athletic, with a head small in proportion to his size. Impossible not to recognize him.
If only Jakuskin could get in advance of his intended victim! But this he could not do. The pursuer's worst hinderance was the moonlight, which, turning night into day, enabled the imperial cortege to travel continuously, and thus prevented his stealing a march. Fortunately, on the seventh day, when they reached Kursk, the sky suddenly clouded over and stormy weather set in. The moon no longer replaced the sun, and driving by night was impossible—but not riding.
This gave hopes of overtaking the Czar. But these hopes also were doomed to be frustrated.
He was to experience that nothing is impossible to the great of the earth. When the Czar is in haste even darkness must yield. Once when Jakuskin, galloping in the pitch darkness over breakneck paths, had got nearly up with the escort, it was but to see that the Czar's way was illuminated. Men carrying lighted torches were riding on either side of the imperial carriage.
"All the better!" thought Jakuskin to himself. But when he reached the high-road, he saw that as far as the eye reached, at a distance of three hundred paces, were fagot heaps, serfs standing beside them with lighted matches; and as the Czar approached, one fagot heap after another, blazing up, lighted the way. This went on till break of day. The Czar rattled over the ground by artificial light.
Thus the wolf hangs back, gnashing his hungry teeth, when he sees fire-light. These bonfires along the highway destroyed his calculations. He must give up the pursuit; now he might allow himself time for sleep.
He did not move from the hut in which he had taken shelter for a whole week, till the second cortege came up with the Czarina. She travelled more slowly; that which had taken the Czar twelve days she accomplished in twenty-four. Jakuskin followed on her track. The journey came to an end at Taganrog.
Taganrog is a seaport on the Sea of Azof. It is a modest little town which has twice been entirely deserted by its inhabitants, having once been made over by the Russians to the Turks; the next time, at conclusion of peace, by the Sultan of Turkey to the Czar. At present it is inhabited by Greeks. It was only due to the chance throw of a knife that it did not form the site of the capital of the empire. When Czar Peter conceived the idea of founding a new capital on the sea he was in doubt whether to build it in the Finnish marshes or the Tartar steppes. The throwing of a knife decided it. If it had fallen point downward Taganrog would now be St. Petersburg, and the cupolas of Isaac Cathedral would be reflected in the Sea of Azof instead of in the Neva.