"I will pull you through," observed our Jehu, with a broad grin on his lobster-colored countenance, and apparently much amused with the state of affairs.
"No, oh, son of an animal," retorted my companion; "stay here till we return."
After considerable search we found a spot where the water-channel was certainly not much more than twelve feet across, and some peasants who were fishing in the river came up and volunteered their assistance. One of them produced a pole about eight feet long, with which, he said, we could jump the chasm. My companion looked at me with a melancholy smile, in which resolution and caution struggled for the mastery. "It is very awful," he said, "very awful, but there is no other alternative, and I much fear that we must."
With these words he seized the pole, and carefully inserted one end of it in the muddy bottom. "If the ice gives way when I land on the other side!" he suddenly observed, releasing his hold of the leaping bar. "Why, if it does, you will get a ducking," was my remark: "but be quick; the longer you look at it the less you will like it; and it is very cold standing here: now, then, jump over."
[The corpulent Russian, however, could not bring himself to face the chasm, and preferred the risk of a wetting in being dragged through in the sleigh. Burnaby's turn came, and he chose the pole, piqued thereto by the chaffing remarks of the grinning peasants.]
"How fat they are!" said one. "No, it's their furs," observed another. "How awkward he is!" continued a third; "why, I could jump it myself."--"I tell you what it is, my friend," I at length observed, "if you continue this conversation, I think it very likely you will jump either over or in, for I want to find out the exact distance, and am thinking of throwing you over first, in order to satisfy my mind as to how wide it is, and how deep."
This remark, uttered in rather a sharp tone, had the desired effect, and, seizing the pole convulsively, I prepared for the leap, which, nothing to a man not clad in furs, was by no means a contemptible one in my sleigh attire. One, two, three! a bound, a sensation of flying through the air, a slip, a scramble, and I found myself on the other side, having got over with no more damage than one wet leg, the boot itself being instantly covered with a shining case of ice.