station-masters was good only for that evening; that if we didn't
take the horses immediately we should have to pay demurrage; that the
curfew bell had rung; that the town gates would close at ten thirty
sharp; and that if we didn't get under way at once, we should probably
be arrested for riotous disturbance of the peace!

We put on our _kukhlankas_ and fur hoods at last; shook hands once
more all around; and finally got out into the street;--Malchanski
dragging Schwartz off to his sleigh singing the chorus of a Russian
drinking song that ended in "Ras-to-chee'-tel-no! Vos-khe-tee'-tel-no!
Oo-dee-vee'-tel-no!" We then drank a farewell stirrup cup, which our
bareheaded host brought out to us after we had taken our seats, and
were just about to start, when Baron Maidel shouted to me, with an
air of serious concern, "Have you got a club--for the drivers and
station-masters?"

"No," I replied, "I don't need a club; I can talk to them in the most
persuasive Russian you ever heard."

"Akh! Neilza!" ("Impossible") he exclaimed. "It is impossible to go
so! You must have a club! Wait a minute!" and he rushed back into
the house to get me a bludgeon from his private armory. My driver,
meanwhile, who evidently disapproved, on personal grounds, of this
suggestion, laid his whip across his horses' backs with a cry of "Noo,
rebatta!" ("Now then, boys") and we dashed away from the house, just
as the Baron reappeared on the steps brandishing a formidable cudgel
and shouting: "Pastoy! Neilza!" ("Stop, it's impossible.") "You can't
go without a club!" When we turned a neighbouring corner and lost
sight of the house, our host was waving a bottle in one hand and a
lighted candle in the other; Baron Maidel was still gesticulating on
the steps, shouting: "Neilza! Hold on! Club! For your drivers! It's
impossible to go so!" and the little group of "provozhatters" on the
sidewalk were laughing, cheering, and shouting "Good-bye! Good luck!
With God!"

We dashed away at a gallop through the snow-drifted streets, past
earth-banked _yurts_ whose windows of ice were irradiated with a warm
glow by the open fires within; past columns of luminous smoke rising
from the wide chimneys of Yakut houses; past a red stuccoed church
upon whose green, balloon-shaped domes golden stars glittered in the
frosty moonlight; past a lonely graveyard on the outskirts of the
city; and finally down a gentle decline to the snow-covered river,
which had a width of