Platoff travelled very swiftly, and in state: he himself sat in the calash, and on the box sat two Cossacks of the Imperial Suite[20] with nagaikas,[21] 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 over-ran the stopping-place by a hundred leaps. Then the Suite-Cossack would work upon the coachman in the [Pg 40]opposite quarter again, and they would return to the entrance.  
And in this same fashion did they roll into Tula; at first they flew a hundred leaps beyond the Moscow barrier, and then the Cossack worked upon the coachman in the opposite quarter, with his nagaika, and fresh horses were put in at the ............