Without calculating the risks we were about to run, we at once alighted, and followed the carriage, which the coachman drove slowly, whilst the Cossack went ahead with the lantern, pointing out the places he ought to avoid. I do not think that in the whole course of my travels we were ever in so alarming a situation. The danger was imminent and indubitable. The cracking of the woodwork, the darkness, the noise of the water dashing through the decayed floor, that bent under our feet, and the cries of alarm uttered every moment by the coachman and the Cossack, were enough to fill us with dismay: yet the thought of death did not occur to me, or rather my mind was too confused to have any distinct thought at all. Frequently the wheels sank between the broken planks, and those were moments of racking anxiety; but at last by dint of perseverance we reached the opposite bank in safety. The passage had lasted more than an hour; it was time for it to end, for I could hold out no longer; the water on the bridge was over our ancles. It may be imagined with what satisfaction we took our places again in the carriage. The dangers we had just incurred, and which we were then better able fully to understand, almost made us doubt our actual safety. For a long while we seemed to hear the noise of the waves breaking against the bridge; but this feeling was soon dispelled by others; for our nocturnal adventures were by no means at an end.
At some versts from the Don our unlucky star put us into the hands of a drunken coachman, who after losing his way, I know not how often, and bumping us over ditches and ploughed fields, actually brought us back in sight of the dreadful bridge which we still could not think of without shuddering. We tried in our distress to persuade ourselves we were mistaken, but the case was too plain; there was the Don in front of us, and there stood Axai, the village we had passed through after getting into the britchka. Fancy our rage after floundering about for two hours to find ourselves just at the point from which we started. The only thing we could think of was to pass the night in a peasant's cabin; but our abominable coachman, whom the sight of the river had suddenly sobered, and who had reason to expect a sound drubbing, threw himself on his knees and so earnestly implored us to try the road to Rostof again, that we yielded to his entreaties. The difficulty was how to get back into the road, and we had many a start before we found it. The carriage was so violently shaken in crossing a ditch, that the coachman and Anthony were pitched from their seats, and the latter fell upon the pole, and became entangled in such a way that he was not easily extricated. His shouts for help, and his grimaces when my husband and the Cossack had set him on his legs were so desperate, that one would have thought half his bones were broken, though he had only a few trifling bruises. As for the yemshik, he picked himself up very coolly, and climbed into his seat again as if nothing extraordinary had happened. To see the quiet way in which he resumed the reins, one would have supposed he had just risen from a bed of roses; such is the usual apathy of the Russian peasants.
It was four in the morning when we came in sight of Rostof, which is but twelve versts distant from the Don. Thus we spent a great part of the night in wandering about that town, like condemned ghosts, without deriving much advantage from our rash passage of the river. It was well worth while to run the risk of drowning, when our calculations and efforts could be baffled by so vulgar a cause as the drunkenness of a coachman! But the sight of Rostof, where good cheer and hospitality awaited us, consoled us for all our mishaps. Yet even here, when we almost touched the goal, our patience was put to further trial; for alighting at the post station two versts from the town, our rascally coachman positively refused to drive us a foot beyond it. This was too much for the Cossack's endurance, so drawing out a long knout from his belt, he paid the fellow on the spot the whole reckoning he had intended to settle with him at the journey's end. The yemshik's shouts brought all the people of the station about us, and the wife of the postmaster came and scolded him at such a rate, that at last he was forced to drive us to the town; but it was more than an hour before he set us down at Mr. Yeams's house. His drunkenness had now passed into the sleepy stage, and he could only be kept to his work by constant thumping.