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Once a low-hung two-wheeled vehicle rattled by, on which, insufficiently covered by sacking, lay a dead horse, the great head swinging ghastly over the slanting tail- board, the legs sticking out stark in front. A man, perched sideways on the carcass, swore at the rickety crock he was driving, and lashed it under the belly with a short-handled heavy-thonged whip.
One vast, wide field of snow and ice spread out in every direction, and made desolation complete. When the man re-appeared he was armed with a sturdy "gee-pole," and at his belt was coiled a heavy-thonged, short-stocked driving whip. Without a word he thrust the pole under the front of the sled runners, and a sharp command broke from his lips. The effect was instantaneous.
"Come away, hounds! come away!" was heard, and presently the huntsman, with some of the pack at his horse's heels, issued from the wood playing Rule, Britannia! on a key-bugle, while the cracks of heavy-thonged whips warned the stragglers and loiterers to follow.
The slave-drivers came down among us, and, standing on the drivers' plank, running down the centre of the galley, drove us to superhuman exertions by the merciless blows of their heavy-thonged whips, the lashes of which were plaited up with small lead balls on them.
But provoke me not a third time, O Hortensius, for I have in my possession a heavy-thonged whip, and this would I use on thee even as I order it to be used on the miscreant thieves that are brought to my tribunal. So cross not my path again, dost understand? I am but a man and have not an inexhaustible stock of patience."
When they were mounted, I am obliged to confess that those magnificent animals made Brilliant himself look small. By this time there was great excitement amongst the foot-people; and an official in gold lace, a sort of mounted beadle, riding up with a heavy-thonged whip, cleared a lane at the back of the cart which I had so erroneously imagined to contain the Prince Consort.
And so they would continue to run, for their load was light, and the heavy-thonged whip was playing in skilful hands, and they knew, and feared, and obeyed its constant threat. The way lay across the frozen bosom of a great lake, no less than an inland sea, and a hundred miles must be travelled before night, or the snow, overtook them. It was a hard run. But it must be accomplished. Failure?
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