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Rh haystacks; they might have easily frozen to death. It was cold, and one of them did have his legs frost-bitten, so that he died of it three weeks later."

"But now you see it is not so cold, and it has grown quieter; might not we drive on now, eh?"

"It's fairly warm, warm, oh yes! and the snow's coming down. Now we'll turn back, as it seems easier going and the snow comes down thicker. You might drive if you had a courier, but you'll do it at your own risk. Are you joking? Why, you'd be frozen! And what should I say who am responsible for your honour?"

Just then there was a sound of little bells behind us, the bells of some troika, a three-horse sledge, which was rapidly overtaking us.

"That is a courier's bell," said my driver; "there's one such courier at every post-station."

And, indeed, the little bell of the front troika, the sound of which was now plainly borne to us by the wind, was an extraordinarily welcome sound to hear: a pure, musical, sonorous, and slightly droning sound. As I afterwards ascertained, it was a hunter's arrangement of three little bells—one big one in the centre and two little ones adjusted to tierce. The sound of this tierce and the droning quinte, resounding through the air, was extraordinarily penetrating and strangely pleasant in that vast and voiceless steppe.

"The post is in haste," said my driver when the foremost of the three horses was level with us.