All three assembled in a small house belonging to the left-handed man, locked the door, closed the shutters over the windows, lighted the sacred lamp before the holy picture of Nikolai, and set to work. One day, two days, three days they sat, and went out nowhere, but kept tapping away with their little hammers. They were forging something--but what they were forging, no one knew. Every one was curious, but no one could find out, because the workers said nothing and did not show themselves out of doors. Divers persons went to the cottage, and knocked at the door, under various pretexts, to ask for fire or salt; but the three artist-smiths unbolted for no questions, and it was not even known on what food they subsisted. An attempt was made to frighten them, and they were told that a house in the vicinity was on fire--to see whether they would not run out in their alarm, and then it would be revealed what they had forged; but no one could entrap these cunning artisans. On that occasion only the left-handed man did thrust himself out to the extent of his shoulders, and shout: "Burn by yourselves, but we have no time!"--and thereupon he hid his plucked pate again, clapped the shutter to, and proceeded with his business. Only, it could be seen through tiny cracks, that a small fire was glowing in the house, and the delicate little hammers could be heard tapping away on the resonant anvils. In a word, the whole affair was conducted with such fearful secrecy that it was impossible to find out anything at all, and, moreover, this continued up to the very moment of Cossack Platoff's return from the quiet Don to the Emperor; and during all that time these artisans saw no one and talked with no one. VIII Platoff travelled very swiftly, and in state: he himself sat in the calash, and on the box sat two Cossacks of the Imperial Suite[20] with _nagaikas_,[21] one on each side of the coachman, whom they belabored unmercifully, so that he should drive at a gallop. And if one of these Cossacks fell into a doze, Platoff kicked him out of the calash, and they drove on harder than ever. These means of encouragement operated so efficaciously that it was impossible to bring the horses to a halt at a single posting-station, and they always over-ran the stopping-place by a hundred leaps. Then the Suite-Cossack would work upon the coachman in the opposite quarter again, and they would return to the entrance. And in this same fashion did they roll into Tula; at first they flew a hundred leaps beyond the Moscow barrier, and then the Cossack worked upon the coachman in the opposite quarter, with his nagaika, and fresh horses were put in at the porch. Platoff did not alight from the calash himself, but merely commanded a Suite-Cossack to bring to him, as speedily as possible, the master-workman with whom he had left the flea.