sledge swayed obliquely to and fro at every movement of the horse. Nikita got out the whip hanging up in front, and laid on with it. The good horse, unaccustomed to the whip, started forward at a trot, but very soon slackened down again to a walking pace. And so five minutes elapsed. It was so dark and misty above and below that sometimes the ends of the sledge were invisible. Sometimes the sledge seemed to be standing stock-still and the whole plain to be running backwards. Suddenly the horse drew up abruptly, evidently feeling that there was something wrong in front. Again Nikita leaped lightly from the sledge, threw the reins aside, and went in front of the horse to see what it was stopping at; but scarcely had he taken a step in advance of the horse when his legs gave way beneath him, and he rolled down some steep declivity.
"Whew, whew, whew!" said he to himself, falling all the time, and trying to stop; but he could not stay himself, and only came to a standstill when he found himself sprawling at the bottom of a deep hole in the road which had been covered with a thick layer of snow.
The heap of snow lying on the edge of this ravine, disturbed by the fall of Nikita, plumped down upon him and covered him with snow up to the collar.
"To serve me out like that! 'Tis too bad of you!" said Nikita reproachfully, turning towards the heap of snow and the chasm, and shaking the snow out of his collar.
"Nick! Nick!" shrieked Vasily Andreidh from aloft. But Nikita did not shriek back to him. He
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