"What are you doing, Velasco?"
"Jump in, Kaya, jump in—quick, or the driver will hear! Take the fiddle! Ah, the deuce with this knot!"
With a last tug the knot yielded. Velasco dashed to the step and sprang on it; then his knees gave beneath him, and he fell in the snow as the horses leaped forward.
"Oï—oï! Týsyacha chertéi! A pest!"
With oaths and shrieks of rage the driver rushed from the kitchen of the inn, wiping the vodka from his beard with his sleeve. From the tea-room three other men rushed forward, also shouting, and behind them the Countess.
"What is it?" she screamed, "Have the horses run away? Where is the sleigh and my buffalo robe? Are they stolen? Catch the thieves—catch them!"
Velasco still lay in the snow, stunned by his fall, a dark patch like a shadow. The sleigh had turned suddenly and veered around, not half a rod distant. Kaya stood with the reins uplifted, dragging back on the bits; and the horses were rearing, plunging, back on their haunches, slipping on the ice.
"Velasco!" she cried, "Velasco!"
Her voice rang out like a trumpet, echoing over the snow; and as she cried, she swept the horses about and lashed them with the whip, until they came leaping and trembling close to the patch on the snow, which had begun to stir slowly, awaking from the swoon.
"Ah, if I were a man!" she cried, "If I were only a man and could lift you!" She clinched her teeth, swinging the whip, reining back the struggling animals with her slim, white hands from which she had torn the gloves.