The houses in the Frauengasse were barricaded like others—many of the lower windows were built up. The door of No. 36 was bolted, and through the shutters of the upper windows no glimmer of light penetrated to the outer darkness of the street. Barlasch knocked and waited. He thought he could hear surreptitious movements within the house. Again he knocked.

"Who is that?" asked Lisa just within, on the mat. She must have been there all the time.

"Barlasch," he replied. And the bolts which he, in his knowledge of such matters, himself had oiled, were quickly drawn.

Inside he found Lisa, and behind her Mathilde and Desiree.

"Where is the patron?" he asked, turning to bolt the door again.

"He is out, in the town," answered Desiree, in a strained voice. "Where are you from?"

"From Kowno."

Barlasch looked from one face to the other. His own was burnt red, and the light of the lamp hanging over his head gleamed on the icicles suspended to his eyebrows and ragged whiskers. In the warmth of the house his frozen garments began to melt, and from his limbs the water dripped to the floor with a sound like rain. Then he caught sight of Desiree's face.

"He is alive, I tell you that," he said abruptly. "And well, so far as we know. It was at Kowno that we got news of him. I have a letter."

He opened his cloak, which was stiff like cardboard and creaked when he bent the rough cloth. Under his cloak he wore a Russian peasant's sheepskin coat, and beneath that the remains of his uniform.

"A dog's country," he muttered, as he breathed on his fingers.

At last he found the letter, and gave it to Desiree.

"You will have to make your choice," he commented, with a grimace indicative of a serious situation, "like any other woman. No doubt you will choose wrong."

Desiree went up two steps in order to be nearer the lamp, and they all watched her as she opened the letter.

"Is it from Charles?" asked Mathilde, speaking for the first time.

"No," answered Desiree, rather breathlessly.

Barlasch nudged Lisa, indicated his own mouth, and pushed her towards the kitchen. He nodded cunningly to Mathilde, as if to say that they were now free to discuss family affairs; and added, with a gesture towards his inner man—

"Since last night—nothing."

In a few minutes Desiree, having read the letter twice, handed it to her sister. It was characteristically short.

"We have found a man here," wrote Louis d'Arragon, "who travelled as far as Vilna with Charles. There they parted. Charles, who was ordered to Warsaw on staff work, told his friend that you were in Dantzig, and that, foreseeing a siege of the city, he had written to you to join him at Warsaw. This letter has doubtless been lost. I am following Charles to Warsaw, tracing him step by step, and if he has fallen ill by the way, as so many have done, shall certainly find him. Barlasch returns to bring you to Thorn, if you elect to join Charles. I will await you at Thorn, and if Charles has proceeded, we will follow him to Warsaw."

Barlasch, who had watched Desiree, now followed Mathilde's eyes as they passed to and fro over the closely written lines. As she neared the end, and her face, upon which deep shadows had been graven by sorrow and suspense, grew drawn and hopeless, he gave a curt laugh.

"There were two," he said, "travelling together—the Colonel de Casimir and the husband of—of la petite. They had facilities—name of God!—two carriages and an escort. In the carriages they had some of the Emperor's playthings—holy pictures, the imperial loot—I know not what. Besides that, they had some of their own—not furs and candlesticks such as we others carried on our backs, but gold and jewellery enough to make a man rich all his life."

"How do you know that?" asked Mathilde, a dull light in her eyes.

"I—I know where it came from," replied Barlasch, with an odd smile. "Allez! you may take it from me." And he muttered to himself in the patois of the Cotes du Nord.

"And they were safe and well at Vilna?" asked Mathilde.

"Yes—and they had their treasure. They had good fortune, or else they were more clever than other men; for they had the Imperial treasure to escort, and could take any man's horse for the carriages in which also they had placed their own treasure. It was Captain Darragon who held the appointment, and the other—the Colonel—had attached himself to him as volunteer. For it was at Vilna that the last thread of discipline was broken, and every man did as he wished."

"They did not come to Kowno?" asked Mathilde, who had a clear mind, and that grasp of a situation which more often falls to the lot of the duller sex.

"They did not come to Kowno. They would turn south at Vilna. It was as well. At Kowno the soldiers had broken into the magazines—the brandy was poured out in the streets. The men were lying there, the drunken and the dead all confused together on the snow. But there would be no confusion the next morning; for all would be dead."

"Was it at Kowno that you left Monsieur d'Arragon?" asked Desiree, in a sharp voice.

"No—no. We quitted Kowno together, and parted on the heights above the town. He would not trust me—monsieur le marquis—he was afraid that I should get at the brandy. And he was right. I only wanted the opportunity. He is a strong one—that!" And Barlasch held up a warning hand, as if to make known to all and sundry that it would be inadvisable to trifle with Louis d'Arragon.

He drew the icicles one by one from his whiskers with a wry face indicative of great agony, and threw them down on the mat.

"Well," he said, after a pause, to Desiree, "have you made your choice?"

Desiree was reading the letter again, and before she could answer, a quick knock on the front door startled them all. Barlasch's face broke into that broad smile which was only called forth by the presence of danger.

"Is it the patron?" he asked in a whisper, with his hand on the heavy bolts affixed by that pious Hanseatic merchant who held that if God be in the house there is no need of watchmen.

"Yes," answered Mathilde. "Open quickly."

Sebastian came in with a light step. He was like a man long saddled with a burden of which he had at length been relieved.

"Ah! What news?" he asked, when he recognised Barlasch.

"Nothing that you do not know already, monsieur," replied Barlasch, "except that the husband of Mademoiselle is well and on the road to Warsaw. Here—read that."

And he took the letter from Desiree's hand.

"I knew he would come back safely," said Desiree; and that was all.

Sebastian read the letter in one quick glance—and then fell to thinking.

"It is time to quit Dantzig," said Barlasch quietly, as if he had divined the old man's thoughts. "I know Rapp. There will be trouble—here, on the Vistula."

But Sebastian dismissed the suggestion with a curt shake of the head.

Barlasch's attention had been somewhat withdrawn by a smell of cooking meat, to which he opened his nostrils frankly and noisily after the manner of a dog.

"Then it remains," he said, looking towards the kitchen, "for Mademoiselle to make her choice."

"There is no choice," replied Desiree, "I shall be ready to go with you—when you have eaten."

"Good," said Barlasch, and the word applied as well to Lisa, who was beckoning to him.



CHAPTER XXI. ON THE WARSAW ROAD.



Oft expectation fails, and most oft there Where it most promises; and oft it hits Where hope is coldest and despair most sits.

Love, it is said, is blind. But hatred is as bad. In Antoine Sebastian hatred of Napoleon had not only blinded eyes far-seeing enough in earlier days, but it had killed many natural affections. Love, too, may easily die—from a surfeit or a famine. Hatred never dies; it only sleeps.

Sebastian's hatred was all awake now. It was aroused by the disasters that had befallen Napoleon; of which disasters the Russian campaign was only one small part. For he who stands above all his compeers must expect them to fall upon him should he stumble. Napoleon had fallen, and a hundred foes who had hitherto nursed their hatred in a hopeless silence were alert to strike a blow should he descend within their reach.

When whole empires had striven in vain to strike, how could a mere association of obscure men hope to record its blow? The Tugendbund had begun humbly enough; and Napoleon, with that unerring foresight which raised him above all other men, had struck at its base. For an association in which kings and cobblers stand side by side on an equal footing must necessarily be dangerous to its foes.

Sebastian was not carried off his feet by the great events of the last six months. They only rendered him steadier. For he had waited a lifetime. It is only a sudden success that dazzles. Long waiting nearly always ensures a wise possession.

Sebastian, like all men absorbed in a great thought, was neglectful of his social and domestic obligations. Has it not been shown that he allowed Mathilde and Desiree to support him by giving dancing lessons? But he was not the ordinary domestic tyrant who is familiar to all—the dignified father of a family who must have the best of everything, whose teaching to his offspring takes the form of an unconscious and solemn warning. He did not ask the best; he hardly noticed what was offered to him; and it was not owing to his demand, but to that feminine spirit of self-sacrifice which has ruined so many men, that he fared better than his daughters.

If he thought about it at all, he probably concluded that Mathilde and Desiree were quite content to give their time and thought to the support of himself—not as their father, but as the motive power of the Tugendbund in Prussia. Many greater men have made the same mistake, and quite small men with a great name make it every day, thinking complacently that it is a privilege to some woman to minister to their wants while they produce their immortal pictures or deathless books; whereas, the woman would tend him as carefully were he a crossing-sweeper, and is only following the dictates of an instinct which is loftier than his highest thought and more admirable than his most astounding work of art.

Barlasch had not lived so long in the Frauengasse without learning the domestic economy of Sebastian's household. He knew that Desiree, like many persons with kind blue eyes, shaped her own course through life, and abided by the result with a steadfastness not usually attributed to the light-hearted. He concluded that he must make ready to take the road again before midnight. He therefore gave a careful and businesslike attention to the simple meal set before him by Lisa; and, looking up over his plate, he saw for the second time in his life Sebastian hurrying into his own kitchen.

Barlasch half rose, and then, in obedience to a gesture from Sebastian, or remembering perhaps the sturdy Republicanism which he had not learnt until middle-age, he sat down again, fork in hand.

"You are prepared to accompany Madame Darragon to Thorn?" inquired Sebastian, inviting his guest by a gesture to make himself at home—scarcely a necessary thought in the present instance.

"Yes."

"And how do you propose to make the journey?"

This was so unlike Sebastian's usual method, so far from his lax comprehension of a father's duty, that Barlasch paused and looked at him with suspicion. With the back of his hand he pushed up the unkempt hair which obscured his eyes. This unusual display of parental anxiety required looking into.

"From what I could see in the streets," he answered, "the General will not stand in the way of women and useless mouths who wish to quit Dantzig."

"That is possible; but he will not go so far as to provide horses."

Barlasch gave his companion a quick glance, and returned to his supper, eating with an exaggerated nonchalance, as if he were alone.

"Will you provide them?" he asked abruptly, at length, without looking up.

"I can get them for you, and can ensure you relays by the way."

Barlasch cut a piece of meat very carefully, and, opening his mouth wide, looked at Sebastian over the orifice.

"On one condition," pursued Sebastian quietly; "that you deliver a letter for me in Thorn. I make no pretence; if it is found on you, you will be shot."

Barlasch smiled pleasantly.

"The risks are very great," said Sebastian, tapping his snuff-box reflectively.

"I am not an officer to talk of my honour," answered Barlasch, with a laugh. "And as for risk"—he paused and put half a potato into his mouth—"it is Mademoiselle I serve," concluded this uncouth knight with a curt simplicity.

So they set out at ten o'clock that night in a light sleigh on high runners, such as may be seen on any winter day in Poland down to the present time. The horses were as good as any in Dantzig at this date, when a horse was more costly than his master. The moon, sailing high overhead through fleecy clouds, found it no hard task to light a world all snow and ice. The streets of Dantzig were astir with life and the rumble of waggons. At first there were difficulties, and Barlasch explained airily that he was not so accomplished a whip in the streets as in the open country.

"But never fear," he added. "We shall get there, soon enough."

At the city gates there was, as Barlasch had predicted, no objection made to the departure of a young girl and an old man. Others were quitting Dantzig by the same gate, on foot, in sleighs and carts; but all turned westward at the cross-roads and joined the stream of refugees hurrying forward to Germany. Barlasch and Desiree were alone on the wide road that runs southward across the plain towards Dirschau. The air was very cold and still. On the snow, hard and dry like white dust, the runners of the sleigh sang a song on one note, only varied from time to time by a drop of several octaves as they passed over a culvert or some hollow in the road, after which the high note, like the sound of escaping steam, again held sway. The horses fell into a long steady trot, their feet beating the ground with a regular, sleep-inducing thud. They were harnessed well forward to a very long pole, and covered the ground with free strides, unhampered by any thought of their heels. The snow pattered against the cloth stretched like a wind-sail from their flanks to the rising front of the sleigh.

Barlasch sat upright, a thick motionless figure, four-square to the cutting wind. He drove with one hand at a time, sitting on the other to restore circulation between whiles. It was impossible to distinguish the form of his garments, for he was wrapped round in a woollen shawl like a mummy, showing only his eyes beneath the ragged fur of a sheepskin cap upon which the rime caused by the warmth of the horses and his own breath had frozen like a coating of frosted silver.

Desiree was huddled down beside him, with her head bent forward so as to protect her face from the wind, which seared like a hot iron. She wore a hood of white fur lined with a darker fur, and when she lifted her face only her eyes, bright and wakeful, were visible.

"If you are warm, you may go to sleep," said Barlasch in a mumbling voice, for his face was drawn tight and his lips stiffened by the cold. "But if you shiver, you must stay awake."

But Desiree seemed to have no wish for sleep. Whenever Barlasch leant forward to peer beneath her hood she looked round at him with wakeful eyes. Whenever, to see if she were still awake, he gave her an unceremonious nudge, she nudged back again instantly. As the night wore on, she grew more wakeful. When they halted at a wayside inn, which must have been minutely described to Barlasch by Sebastian, and Desiree accepted the innkeeper's offer of a cup of coffee by the fire while fresh horses were being put into harness, she was wide awake and looked at Barlasch with a reckless laugh as he shook the rime from his eyebrows. In response he frowningly scrutinized as much of her face as he could see, and shook his head disapprovingly.

"You laugh when there is nothing to laugh at," he said grimly. "Foolish. It makes people wonder what is in your mind."

"There is nothing in my mind," she answered gaily.

"Then there is something in your heart, and that is worse!" said Barlasch, which made Desiree look at him doubtfully.

They had done forty miles with the same horses, and were nearly halfway. For some hours the road had followed the course of the Vistula on the high tableland above the river, and would so continue until they reached Thorn.

"You must sleep," said Barlasch curtly, when they were once more on the road. She sat silent beside him for an hour. The horses were fresh, and covered the ground at a great pace. Barlasch was no driver, but he was skilful with the horses, and husbanded their strength at every hill.

"If we go on like this, when shall we arrive?" asked Desiree suddenly.

"By eight o'clock, if all goes well."

"And we shall find Monsieur Louis d'Arragon awaiting us at Thorn?"

Barlasch shrugged his shoulders doubtfully.

"He said he would be there," he muttered, and, turning in his seat, he looked down at her with some contempt.

"That is like a woman," he said. "They think all men are fools except one, and that one is only to be compared with the bon Dieu."

Desiree could not have heard the remark, for she made no answer and sat silent, leaning more and more heavily against her companion. He changed the reins to his other hand, and drove with it for an hour after all feeling had left it. Desiree was asleep. She was still sleeping when, in the dim light of a late dawn, Barlasch saw the distant tower of Thorn Cathedral.

They were no longer alone on the road now, but passed a number of heavy market-sleighs bringing produce and wood to the town. Barlasch had been in Thorn before. Desiree was still sleeping when he turned the horses into the crowded yard of the "Drei Kronen." The sleighs and carriages were packed side by side as in a warehouse, but the stables were empty. No eager host came out to meet the travellers. The innkeepers of Thorn had long ceased to give themselves that trouble. For the city was on the direct route of the retreat, and few who got so far had any money left.

Slowly and painfully Barlasch unwound himself and disentangled his legs. He tried first one and then the other, as if uncertain whether he could walk. Then he staggered numbly across the yard to the door of the inn.

A few minutes later Desiree woke up. She was in a room warmed by a great white stove and dimly lighted by candles. Some one was pulling off her gloves and feeling her hands to make sure that they were not frost-bitten. She looked sleepily at a white coffee-pot standing on the table near the candles; then her eyes, still uncomprehending, rested on the face of the man who was loosening her hood, which was hard with rime and ice. He had his back to the candles, and was half-hidden by the collar of his fur coat, which met the cap pressed down over his ears.

He turned towards the table to lay aside her gloves, and the light fell on his face. Desiree was wideawake in an instant, and Louis d'Arragon, hearing her move, turned anxiously to look at her again. Neither spoke for a minute. Barlasch was holding his numbed hand against the stove, and was grinding his teeth and muttering at the pain of the restored circulation.

Desiree shook the icicles from her hood, and they rattled like hail on the bare floor. Her hair, all tumbled round her face, caught the light of the candles. Her eyes were bright and the colour was in her cheeks. D'Arragon glanced at her with a sudden look of relief, and then turned to Barlasch. He took the numbed hand and felt it; then he held a candle close to it. Two of the fingers were quite white, and Barlasch made a grimace when he saw them. D'Arragon began rubbing at once, taking no notice of his companion's moans and complaints.

Without desisting, he looked over his shoulder towards Desiree, but not actually at her face.

"I heard last night," he said, "that the two carriages are standing in an inn-yard three leagues beyond this on the Warsaw road. I have traced them step by step from Kowno. My informant tells me that the escort has deserted, and that the officer in charge, Colonel Darragon, was going on alone, with the two drivers, when he was taken ill. He is nearly well again, and hopes to continue his journey to-morrow or the next day."

Desiree nodded her head to signify that she had heard and understood. Barlasch gave a cry of pain, and withdrew his hand with a jerk.

"Enough, enough!" he said. "You hurt me. The life is returning now; a drop of brandy perhaps—"

"There is no brandy in Thorn," said D'Arragon, turning towards the table. "There is only coffee."

He busied himself with the cups, and did not look at Desiree when he spoke again.

"I have secured two horses," he said, "to enable you to proceed at once, if you are able to. But if you would rather rest here to-day—"

"Let us go on at once," interrupted Desiree hastily.

Barlasch, crouching against the stove, glanced from one to the other beneath his heavy brows, wondering, perhaps, why they avoided looking at each other.

"You will wait here," said D'Arragon, turning towards him, "until—until I return."

"Yes," was the answer. "I will lie on the floor here and sleep. I have had enough. I—"

Louis left the room to give the necessary orders. When he returned in a few minutes, Barlasch was asleep on the floor, and Desiree had tied on her hood again, which concealed her face. He drank a cup of coffee and ate some dry bread absent-mindedly, in silence.

The sound of bells, feebly heard through the double windows, told them that the horses were being harnessed.

"Are you ready?" asked D'Arragon, who had not sat down; and in response, Desiree, standing near the stove, went towards the door, which he held open for her to pass out. As she passed him, she glanced at his face, and winced.

In the sleigh she looked up at him as if expecting him to speak. He was looking straight in front of him. There was, after all, nothing to be said. She could see his steady eyes between his high collar and the fur cap. They were hard and unflinching. The road was level now, and the snow beaten to a gleaming track like ice. D'Arragon put the horses to a gallop at the town gate, and kept them at it.

In half an hour he turned towards her and pointed with his whip to a roof half hidden by some thin pines.

"That is the inn," he said.

In the inn yard he indicated with his whip two travelling-carriages standing side by side.

"Colonel Darragon is here?" he said to the cringing Jew who came to meet them; and the innkeeper led the way upstairs. The house was a miserable one, evil-smelling, sordid. The Jew pointed to a door, and, cringing again, left them.

Desiree made a gesture telling Louis to go in first, which he did at once. The room was littered with trunks and cases. All the treasure had been brought into the sick man's chamber for greater safety.

On a narrow bed near the window a man lay huddled on his side. He turned and looked over his shoulder, showing a haggard face with a ten-days' beard on it. He looked from one to the other in silence.

It was Colonel de Casimir.



CHAPTER XXII. THROUGH THE SHOALS.



I see my way, as birds their trackless way.

De Casimir had never seen Louis d'Arragon, and yet some dim resemblance to his cousin must have introduced the new-comer to a conscience not quite easy.

"You seek me, Monsieur," he asked, not having recognized Desiree, who stood behind her companion, in her furs.

"I seek Colonel Darragon, and was told that we should find him in this room."

"May I ask why you seek him in this rather unceremonious manner?" asked De Casimir, with the ready insolence of his calling and his age.

"Because I am his cousin," replied Louis quietly, "and Madame is his wife."

Desiree came forward, her face colourless. She caught her breath, but made no attempt to speak.

De Casimir tried to lift himself on his elbows.

"Ah! madame," he said. "You see me in a sorry state. I have been very ill." And he made a gesture with one hand, begging her to overlook his unkempt appearance and the disorder of his room.

"Where is Charles?" asked Desiree curtly. She had suddenly realized how intensely she had always disliked De Casimir, and distrusted him.

"Has he not returned to Dantzig?" was the ready answer. "He should have been there a week ago. We parted at Vilna. He was exhausted—a mere question of over-fatigue—and at his request I left him there to recover and to pursue his way to Dantzig, where he knew you would be awaiting him."

He paused and looked from one to the other with quick and furtive eyes. He felt himself easily a match for them in quickness of perception, in rapid thought, in glib speech. Both were dumb—he could not guess why. But there was a steadiness in D'Arragon's eyes which rarely goes with dulness of wit. This was a man who could be quick at will—a man to be reckoned with.

"You are wondering why I travel under your cousin's name, Monsieur," said De Casimir, with a friendly smile.

"Yes," returned Louis, without returning the smile.

"It is simple enough," explained the sick man. "At Vilna we found all discipline relaxed. There were no longer any regiments. There was no longer staff. There was no longer an army. Every man did as he thought best. Many, as you know, elected to await the Russians at Vilna, rather than attempt to journey farther. Your cousin had been given the command of the escort which has now filtered away, like every other corps. He was to conduct back to Paris two carriages laden with imperial treasure and certain papers of value. Charles did not want to go back to Paris. He wished most naturally to return to Dantzig. I, on the other hand, desired to go to France; and there place my sword once more at the Emperor's service. What more simple than to change places?"

"And names," suggested D'Arragon, without falling into De Casimir's easy and friendly manner.

"For greater security in passing through Poland and across the frontier," explained De Casimir readily. "Once in France—and I hope to be there in a week—I shall report the matter to the Emperor as it really happened: namely, that, owing to Colonel Darragon's illness, he transferred his task to me at Vilna. The Emperor will be indifferent, so long as the order has been carried out."

De Casimir turned to Desiree as likely to be more responsive than this dark-eyed stranger, who listened with so disconcerting a lack of comment or sympathy.

"So you see, madame," he said, "Charles will still get the credit for having carried out his most difficult task, and no harm is done."

"When did you leave Charles at Vilna?" asked she.

De Casimir lay back on the pillow in an attitude which betrayed his weakness and exhaustion. He looked at the ceiling with lustreless eyes.

"It must have been a fortnight ago," he said at length. "I was trying to count the days. We have lost all account of dates since quitting Moscow. One day has been like another—and all, terrible. Believe me, madame, it has always been in my mind that you were awaiting the return of your husband at Dantzig. I spared him all I could. A dozen times we saved each other's lives."

In six words Desiree could have told him all she knew: that he was a spy who had betrayed to death and exile many Dantzigers whose hospitality had been extended to him as a Polish officer; that Charles was a traitor who had gained access to her father's house in order to watch him—though he had honestly fallen in love with her. He was in love with her still, and he was her husband. It was this thought that broke into her sleep at night, that haunted her waking hours.

She glanced at Louis d'Arragon, and held her peace.

"Then, Monsieur," he said, "you have every reason to suppose that if Madame returns to Dantzig now, she will find her husband there?"

De Casimir looked at D'Arragon, and hesitated for an instant. They both remembered afterwards that moment of uncertainty.

"I have every reason to suppose it," replied De Casimir at length, speaking in a low voice, as if fearful of being overheard.

Louis waited a moment, and glanced at Desiree, who, however, had evidently nothing more to say.

"Then we will not trouble you farther," he said, going towards the door, which he held open for Desiree to pass out. He was following her when De Casimir called him back.

"Monsieur," cried the sick man, "Monsieur, one moment, if you can spare it."

Louis came back. They looked at each other in silence while they heard Desiree descend the stairs and speak in German to the innkeeper who had been waiting there.

"I will be quite frank with you," said De Casimir, in that voice of confidential friendliness which so rarely failed in its effect. "You know that Madame Darragon has an elder sister, Mademoiselle Mathilde Sebastian?"

"Yes."

De Casimir raised himself on his elbows again, with an effort, and gave a short, half shamefaced laugh which was quite genuine. It was odd that Mathilde and he, who had walked most circumspectly, should both have been tripped up, as it were, by love.

"Bah!" he said, with a gesture dismissing the subject, "I cannot tell you more. It is a woman's secret, Monsieur, not mine. Will you deliver a letter for me in Dantzig, that is all I ask?"

"I will give it to Madame Darragon to give to Mademoiselle Mathilde, if you like; I am not returning to Dantzig," replied Louis. But de Casimir shook his head.

"I am afraid that will not do," he said doubtfully. "Between sisters, you understand—"

And he was no doubt right; this man of quick perception. Is it not from our nearest relative that our dearest secret is usually withheld?

"You cannot find another messenger?" asked De Casimir, and the anxiety in his face was genuine enough.

"I can—if you wish it."

"Ah, Monsieur, I shall not forget it! I shall never forget it," said the sick man quickly and eagerly. "The letter is there, beneath that sabretasche. It is sealed and addressed."

Louis found the letter, and went towards the door, as he placed it in his pocket.

"Monsieur," said De Casimir, stopping him again. "Your name, if I may ask it, so that I may remember a countryman who has done me so great a service."

"I am not a countryman; I am an Englishman," replied Louis. "My name is Louis d'Arragon."

"Ah! I know. Charles has told me, Monsieur le—"

But D'Arragon heard no more, for he closed the door behind him.

He found Desiree awaiting him in the entrance hall of the inn, where a fire of pine-logs burnt in an open chimney. The walls and low ceiling were black with smoke, the little windows were covered with ice an inch thick. It was twilight in this quiet room, and would have been dark but for the leaping flames of the fire.

"You will go back to Dantzig," he asked, "at once?"

He carefully avoided looking at her, though he need not have feared that she would have allowed her eyes to meet his. And thus they stood, looking downward to the fire—alone in a world that heeded them not, and would forget them in a week—and made their choice of a life.

"Yes," she answered.

He stood thinking for a moment. He was quite practical and matter-of-fact; and had the air of a man of action rather than of one who deals in thoughts, and twists them hither and thither so that good is made to look ridiculous, and bad is tricked out with a fine new name. He frowned as he looked at the fire with eyes that flitted from one object to another, as men's eyes do who think of action and not of thought. This was the sailor—second to none in the shallow northern sea, where all marks had been removed, and every light extinguished—accustomed to facing danger and avoiding it, to foresee remote contingencies and provide against them, day and night, week in, week out; a sailor, careful and intrepid. He had the air of being capable of that concentration without which no man can hope to steer a clear course at all.

"The horses that brought you from Marienwerder will not be fit for the road till to-morrow morning," he said. "I will take you back to Thorn at once, and—leave you there with Barlasch."

He glanced towards her, and she nodded, as if acknowledging the sureness and steadiness of the hand at the helm.

"You can start early to-morrow morning, and be in Dantzig to-morrow night."

They stood side by side in silence for some minutes. He was still thinking of her journey—of the dangers and the difficulties of that longer journey through life without landmark or light to guide her.

"And you?" she asked curtly.

He did not reply at once but busied himself with his ponderous fur coat, which he buttoned, as if bracing himself for the start. Beneath her lashes she looked sideways at the deliberate hands and the lean strong face, burnt to a red-brown by sun and snow, half hidden in the fur collar of his worn and weather-beaten coat.

"Konigsberg," he answered, "and Riga."

A light passed through her watching eyes, usually so kind and gay; like the gleam of jealousy.

"Your ship?" she asked sharply.

"Yes," he answered, as the innkeeper came to tell them that their sleigh awaited them.

It was snowing now, and a whistling, fitful wind swept down the valley of the Vistula from Poland and the far Carpathians which made the travellers crouch low in the sleigh and rendered talk impossible, had there been anything to say. But there was nothing.

They found Barlasch asleep where they had left him in the inn at Thorn, on the floor against the stove. He roused himself with the quickness and completeness of one accustomed to brief and broken rest, and stood up shaking himself in his clothes, like a dog with a heavy coat. He took no notice of D'Arragon, but looked at Desiree with questioning eyes.

"It was not the Captain?" he asked.

And Desiree shook her head. Louis was standing near the door giving orders to the landlady of the inn—a kindly Pomeranian, clean and slow—for Desiree's comfort till the next morning.

Barlasch went close to Desiree, and, nudging her arm with exaggerated cunning, whispered—

"Who was it?"

"Colonel de Casimir."

"With the two carriages and the treasure from Moscow?" asked Barlasch, watching Louis out of the corner of one eye, to make sure that he did not hear. It did not matter whether he heard or not, but Barlasch came of a peasant stock that always speaks of money in a whisper. And when Desiree nodded, he cut short the conversation.

The hostess came forward to tell Desiree that her room was ready, kindly suggesting that the "gnadiges Fraulein" must need sleep and rest. Desiree knew that Louis would go on to Konigsberg at once. She wondered whether she should ever see him again—long afterwards, perhaps, when all this would seem like a dream. Barlasch, breathing noisily on his frost-bitten fingers, was watching them. Desiree shook hands with Louis in an odd silence, and, turning on her heel, followed the woman out of the room without looking back.



CHAPTER XXIII. AGAINST THE STREAM.



Wo viel Licht ist, ist starker Schatten.

In the mean time the last of the Great Army had reached the Niemen, that narrow winding river in its ditch-like bed sunk below the level of the tableland, to which six months earlier the greatest captain this world has ever seen rode alone, and, coming back to his officers, said—

"Here we cross."

Four hundred thousand men had crossed—a bare eighty thousand lived to pass the bridge again. Twelve hundred cannons had been left behind, nearly a thousand in the hands of the enemy, and the remainder buried or thrown into those dull rivers whose slow waters flow over them to this day. One hundred and twenty-five thousand officers and men had been killed in battle, another hundred thousand had perished by cold and disaster at the Beresina or other rivers where panic seized the fugitives.

Forty-eight generals had been captured by the Russians, three thousand officers, one hundred and ninety thousand men, swallowed by the silent white Empire of the North and no more seen.

As the retreat neared Vilna the cold had increased, killing men as the first cold of an English winter kills flies. And when the French quitted Vilna, the Russians were glad enough to seek its shelter, Kutusoff creeping in with forty thousand men, all that remained to him of two hundred thousand. He could not carry on the pursuit, but sent forward a handful of Cossacks to harry the hare-brained few who called themselves the rearguard. He was an old man, nearly worn out, with only three months more to live—but he had done his work.

Ney—the bravest of the brave—left alone in Russia at the last with seven hundred foreign recruits, men picked from here and there, called in from the highways and hedges to share the glory of the only Marshal who came back from Moscow with a name untarnished—Ney and Girard, musket in hand, were the last to cross the bridge, shouting defiance at their Cossack foes, who, when they had hounded the last of the French across the frontier, flung themselves down on the bloodstained snow to rest.

All along the banks of the Vistula, from Konigsberg and Dantzig up to Warsaw—that slow river which at the last call shall assuredly give up more dead than any other—the fugitives straggled homewards. For the Russians paused at their own frontier, and Prussia was still nominally the friend of France. She had still to wear the mask for three long months when she should at last openly side with Russia, only to be beaten again by Napoleon.

Murat was at Konigsberg with the Imperial staff, left in supreme command by the Emperor, and already thinking of his own sunny kingdom of the Mediterranean, and the ease and the glory of it. In a few weeks he, too, must tarnish his name.

"I make over the command to you," he said to Prince Eugene; and Napoleon's step-son made an answer which shows, as Eugene showed again and again, that contact with a great man makes for greatness.

"You cannot make it over to me," he replied. "Only the Emperor can do that. You can run away in the night, and the supreme command will devolve on me the next morning."

And what Murat did is no doubt known to the learned reader.

Macdonald, abandoned by Yorck with the Prussian contingent, in great peril, alone in the north, was retreating with the remains of the Tenth Army Corps, wondering whether Konigsberg or Dantzig would still be French when he reached them. On his heels was Wittgenstein, in touch with St. Petersburg and the Emperor Alexander, communicating with Kutusoff at Vilna. And Macdonald, like the Scotchman and the Frenchman that he was, turned at a critical moment and rent Wittgenstein. Here was another bulldog in that panic-stricken pack, who turned and snarled and fought while his companions slunk homewards with their tails between their legs. There were three of such breed—Ney and Macdonald, and Prince Eugene de Beauharnais.

Napoleon was in Paris, getting together in wild haste the new army with which he was yet to frighten Europe into fits. And Rapp, doggedly fortifying his frozen city, knew that he was to hold Dantzig at any cost—a remote, far-thrown outpost on the Northern sea, cut off from all help, hundreds of miles from the French frontier, nearly a thousand miles from Paris.

At Marienwerder, Barlasch and Desiree found themselves in the midst of that bustle and confusion which attends the arrival or departure of an army corps. The majority of the men were young and of a dark skin. They seemed gay, and called out salutations to which Barlasch replied curtly enough.

"They are Italians," said he to his companion; "I know their talk and their manners. To you and me, who come from the North, they are like children. See that one who is dancing. It is some fete. What is to-day?"

"It is New Year's Day," replied Desiree.

"New Year's Day," echoed Barlasch. "Good. And we have been on the road since six o'clock; and I, who have forgotten to wish you—" He paused and called cheerily to the horses, which had covered more than forty miles since leaving their stable at Thorn. "Bon Dieu!" he said in a lower tone, glancing at her beneath the ice-bound rim of his fur cap, "Bon Dieu—what am I to wish you, I wonder?"

Desiree did not answer, but smiled a little and looked straight in front of her.

Barlasch made a movement of the shoulders and eyebrows indicative of a hidden anger.

"We are friends," he asked suddenly, "you and I?"

"Yes."

"We have been friends since—that day—when you were married?"

"Yes," answered Desiree.

"Then between friends," said Barlasch, gruffly; "it is not necessary to smile—like that—when it is tears that are there."

Desiree laughed.

"Would you have me weep?" she asked.

"It would hurt one less," said Barlasch, attending to his horses. They were in the town now, and the narrow streets were crowded. Many sick and wounded were dragging themselves wearily along. A few carts, drawn by starving horses, went slowly down the hill. But there was some semblance of order, and thus men had the air and carriage of soldiers under discipline. Barlasch was quick to see it.

"It is the Fourth Corps. The Viceroy's army. They have done well. He is a soldier, who commands them. Ah! There is one I know."

He threw the reins to Desiree, and in a moment he was out on the snow. A man, as old, it would seem, as himself, in uniform and carrying a musket, was marching past with a few men who seemed to be under his orders, though his uniform was long past recognition. He did not perceive, for some minutes, that Barlasch was coming towards him, and then the process of recognition was slow. Finally, he laid aside his musket, and the two old men gravely kissed each other.

Quite forgetful of Desiree, they stood talking together for twenty minutes. Then they gravely embraced once more, and Barlasch returned to the sleigh. He took the reins, and urged the horses up the hill without commenting on his encounter, but Desiree could see that he had heard news.

The inn was outside the town, on the road that follows the Vistula northwards to Dirschau and Dantzig. The horses were tired, and stumbled on the powdery snow which was heavy, like sand, and of a sandy colour. Here and there, by the side of the road, were great stains of blood and the remains of a horse that had been killed, and eaten raw. The faces of many of the men were smeared with blood, which had dried on their cheeks and caked there. Nearly all were smoke-grimed and had sore eyes.

At last Barlasch spoke, with the decisive air of one who has finally drawn up a course of action in a difficult position.

"He comes from my own country, that man. You heard us? We spoke together in our patois. I shall not see him again. He has a catarrh. When he coughs there is blood. Alas!"

Desiree glanced at the rugged face half turned away from her. She was not naturally heartless; but she quite forgot to sympathize with the elderly soldier who had caught a cold on the retreat from Moscow; for his friend's grief lacked conviction. Barlasch had heard news which he had decided to keep to himself.

"Has he come from Vilna?" asked Desiree.

"From Vilna—oh yes. They are all from Vilna."

"And he had no news"—persisted she, "of—Captain Darragon?"

"News—oh no! He is a common soldier, and knows nothing of the officers on the staff. We are the same—he and I—poor animals in the ranks. A little gentleman rides up, all sabretasche and gold lace. It is an officer of the staff. 'Go down into the valley and get shot,' he says. And—bon jour! we go. No—no. He has no news, my poor comrade."

They were at the inn now, and found the huge yard still packed with sleighs and disabled carriages, and the stables ostentatiously empty.

"Go in," said Barlasch; "and tell them who your father is—say Antoine Sebastian and nothing else. I would do it myself, but when it is so cold as that, the lips are stiff, and I cannot speak German properly. They would find out that I am French, and it is no good being French now. My comrade told me that in Konigsberg, Murat himself was ill-received by the burgomaster and such city stuff as that."

It was as Barlasch foretold. For at the name of Antoine Sebastian the innkeeper found horses—in another stable.

It would take a few minutes, he said, to fetch them, and in the meantime there were coffee and some roast meat—his own dinner. Indeed, he could not do enough to testify his respect for Desiree, and his commiseration for her, being forced to travel in such weather through a country infested by starving brigands.

Barlasch consented to come just within the inner door, but refused to sit at the table with Desiree. He took a piece of bread, and ate it standing.

"See you," he said to her when they were left alone, "the good God has made very few mistakes, but there is one thing I would have altered. If He intended us for such a rough life, He should have made the human frame capable of going longer without food. To a poor soldier marching from Moscow to have to stop every three hours and gnaw a piece of horse that has died—and raw—it is not amusing."

He watched Desiree with a grudging eye. For she was young, and had eaten nothing for six freezing hours.

"And for us," he added; "what a waste of time!"

Desiree rose at once with a laugh.

"You want to go," she said. "Come, I am ready."

"Yes," he admitted, "I want to go. I am afraid—name of a dog! I am afraid, I tell you. For I have heard the Cossacks cry, 'Hurrah! Hurrah!' And they are coming."

"Ah!" said Desiree, "that is what your friend told you."

"That, and other things."

He was pulling on his gloves as he spoke, and turned quickly on his heel when the innkeeper entered the room, as if he had expected one of those dread Cossacks of Toula who were half savage. But the innkeeper carried nothing more lethal in his hand than a yellow mug of beer, which he offered to Barlasch. And the old soldier only shook his head.

"There is poison in it," he muttered. "He knows I am a Frenchman."

"Come," said Desiree, with her gay laugh, "I will show you that there is no poison in it."

She took the mug and drank, and handed the measure to Barlasch. It was a poor thin beer, and Barlasch was not one to hide his opinion from the host, to whom he made a reproving grimace when he returned the empty mug. But the effect upon him was nevertheless good, for he took the reins again with a renewed energy, and called to the horses gaily enough.

"Allons," he said; "we shall reach Dantzig safely by nightfall, and there we shall find your husband awaiting us, and laughing at us for our foolish journey."

But being an old man, the beer could not warm his heart for long, and he soon lapsed again into melancholy and silence. Nevertheless, they reached Dantzig by nightfall, and although it was a bitter twilight—colder than the night itself—the streets were full. Men stood in groups and talked. In the brief time required to journey to Thorn something had happened. Something happened every day in Dantzig; for when history wakes from her slumber and moves, it is with a heavy and restless tread.

"What is it?" asked Barlasch of the sentry at the town gate, while they waited for their passports to be returned to them.

"It is a proclamation from the Emperor of Russia—no one knows how it has got here."

"And what does he proclaim—that citizen?"

"He bids the Dantzigers rise and turn us out," answered the soldier, with a grim laugh.

"Is that all?"

"No, comrade, that is not all," was the answer in a graver voice.

"He proclaims that every Pole who submits now will be forgiven and set at liberty; the past, he says, will be committed to an eternal oblivion and a profound silence—those are his words."

"Ah!"

"Yes, and half the defenders of Dantzig are Poles—there are your passports—pass on."

They drove through the dark streets where men like shadows hurried silently about their business.

The Frauengasse seemed to be deserted when they reached it. It was Mathilde who opened the door. She must have been at the darkened window, behind the curtain. Lisa had gone home to her native village in Sammland in obedience to the Governor's orders. Sebastian had not been home all day. Charles had not returned, and there was no news of him.

Barlasch, wiping the snow from his face, watched Desiree, and made no comment.



CHAPTER XXIV. MATHILDE CHOOSES.



But strong is fate, O Love, Who makes, who mars, who ends.

Desiree was telling Mathilde the brief news of her futile journey, when a knock at the front door made them turn from the stairs where they were standing. It was Sebastian's knock. His hours had been less regular of late. He came and went without explanation.

When he had freed his throat from his furs, and laid aside his gloves, he glanced hastily at Desiree, who had kissed him without speaking.

"And your husband?" he asked curtly.

"It was not he whom we found at Thorn," she answered. There was something in her father's voice—in his quick, sidelong glance at her—that caught her attention. He had changed lately. From a man of dreams he had been transformed into a man of action. It is customary to designate a man of action as a hard man. Custom is the brick wall against which feeble minds come to a standstill and hinder the progress of the world. Sebastian had been softened by action, through which his mental energy had found an outlet. But to-night he was his old self again—hard, scornful, incomprehensible.

"I have heard nothing of him," said Desiree.

Sebastian was stamping the snow from his boots.

"But I have," he said, without looking up.

Desiree said nothing. She knew that the secret she had guarded so carefully—the secret kept by herself and Louis—was hers no longer. In the silence of the next moments she could hear Barlasch breathing on his fingers, within the kitchen doorway just behind her. Mathilde made a little movement. She was on the stairs, and she moved nearer to the balustrade and held to it breathlessly. For Charles Darragon's secret was De Casimir's too.

"These two gentlemen," said Sebastian slowly, "were in the secret service of Napoleon. They are hardly likely to return to Dantzig."

"Why not?" asked Mathilde.

"They dare not."

"I think the Emperor will be able to protect his officers," said Mathilde.

"But not his spies," replied Sebastian coldly.

"Since they wore his uniform, they cannot be blamed for doing their duty. They are brave enough. They would hardly avoid returning to Dantzig because—because they have outwitted the Tugendbund."

Mathilde's face was colourless with anger, and her quiet eyes flashed. She had been surprised into this sudden advocacy, and an advocate who displays temper is always a dangerous ally. Sebastian glanced at her sharply. She was usually so self-controlled that her flashing eyes and quick breath betrayed her.

"What do you know of the Tugendbund?" he asked.

But she would not answer, merely shrugging her shoulders and closing her thin lips with a snap.

"It is not only in Dantzig," said Sebastian, "that they are unsafe. It is anywhere where the Tugendbund can reach them."

He turned sharply to Desiree. His wits, cleared by action, told him that her silence meant that she, at all events, had not been surprised. She had, therefore, known already the part played by De Casimir and Charles, in Dantzig, before the war.

"And you," he said, "you have nothing to say for your husband."

"He may have been misled," she said mechanically, in the manner of one making a prepared speech or meeting a foreseen emergency. It had been foreseen by Louis d'Arragon. The speech had been, unconsciously, prepared by him.

"You mean, by Colonel de Casimir," suggested Mathilde, who had recovered her usual quiet. And Desiree did not deny her meaning. Sebastian looked from one to the other. It was the irony of Fate that had married one of his daughters to Charles Darragon, and affianced the other to De Casimir. His own secret, so well kept, had turned in his hand like a concealed weapon.

They were all startled by Barlasch, who spoke from the kitchen door, where he had been standing unobserved or forgotten. He came forward to the light of the lamp hanging overhead.

"That reminds me..." he said a second time, and having secured their attention, he instituted a search in the many pockets of his nondescript clothing. He still wore a dirty handkerchief bound over one eye. It served to release him from duty in the trenches or work on the frozen fortifications. By this simple device, coupled with half a dozen bandages in various parts of his person, where a frost-bite or a wound gave excuse, he passed as one of the twenty-five thousand sick and wounded who encumbered Dantzig at this time, and were already dying at the rate of fifty a day.

"A letter..." he said, still searching with his maimed hand. "You mentioned the name of the Colonel de Casimir. It was that which recalled to my mind..." He paused, and produced a letter carefully sealed. He turned it over, glancing at the seals with a reproving jerk of the head, which conveyed as clearly as words a shameless confession that he had been frustrated by them... "this letter. I was told to give it you, without fail, at the right moment."

It could hardly be the case that he honestly thought this moment might be so described. But he gave the letter to Mathilde with a gesture of grim triumph. Perhaps he was thinking of the cellar in the Palace on the Petrovka at Moscow, and the treasure which he had found there.

"It is from the Colonel de Casimir," he said, "a clever man," he added, turning confidentially to Sebastian, and holding his attention by an upraised hand. "Oh!... a clever man."

Mathilde, her face all flushed, tore open the envelope, while Barlasch, breathing on his fingers, watched with twinkling eye and busy lips.

The letter was a long one. Colonel de Casimir was an adept at explanation. There was, no doubt, much to explain. Mathilde read the letter carefully. It was the first she had ever had—a love-letter in its guise—with explanations in it. Love and explanation in the same breath. Assuredly De Casimir was a daring lover.

"He says that Dantzig will be taken by storm," she said at length, "and that the Cossacks will spare no one."

"Does it signify," inquired Sebastian in his smoothest voice, "what Colonel de Casimir may say?"

His grand manner had come back to him. He made a gesture with his hand almost suggestive of a ruffle at the wrist, and clearly insulting to Colonel de Casimir.

"He urges us to quit the city before it is too late," continued Mathilde, in her measured voice, and awaited her father's reply. He took snuff with a cold smile.

"You will not do so?" she asked. And by way of reply, Sebastian laughed as he dusted the snuff from his coat with his pocket-handkerchief.

"He asks me to go to Cracow with the Grafin, and marry him," said Mathilde finally. And Sebastian only shrugged his shoulders. The suggestion was beneath contempt.

"And...?" he inquired with raised eyebrows.

"I shall do it," replied Mathilde, defiance shining in her eyes.

"At all events," commented Sebastian, who knew Mathilde's mind, and met her coldness with indifference, "you will do it with your eyes open, and not leap in the dark, as Desiree did. I was to blame there; a man is always to blame if he is deceived. With you... Bah! you know what the man is. But you do not know, unless he tells you in that letter, that he is even a traitor in his treachery. He has accepted the amnesty offered by the Czar; he has abandoned Napoleon's cause; he has petitioned the Czar to allow him to retire to Cracow, and there live on his estates."

"He has no doubt good reasons for his action," said Mathilde.

"Two carriages full," muttered Barlasch, who had withdrawn to the dark corner near the kitchen door. But no one heeded him.

"You must make your choice," said Sebastian, with the coldness of a judge. "You are of age. Choose."

"I have already chosen," answered Mathilde. "The Grafin leaves to-morrow. I will go with her."

She had, at all events, the courage of her own opinions—a courage not rare in women, however valueless may be the judgment upon which it is based. And in fairness it must be admitted that women usually have the courage not only of the opinion, but of the consequence, and meet it with a better grace than men can summon in misfortune.

Sebastian dined alone and hastily. Mathilde was locked in her room, and refused to open the door. Desiree cooked her father's dinner while Barlasch made ready to depart on some vague errand in the town.

"There may be news," he said. "Who knows? And afterwards the patron will go out, and it would not be wise for you to remain alone in the house."

"Why not?"

Barlasch turned and looked at her thoughtfully over his shoulder.

"In some of the big houses down in the Niederstadt there are forty and fifty soldiers quartered—diseased, wounded, without discipline. There are others coming. I have told them we have fever in the house. It is the only way. We may keep them out; for the Frauengasse is in the centre of the town, and the soldiers are not needed in this quarter. But you—you cannot lie as I can. You laugh—ah! A woman tells more lies; but a man tells them better. Push the bolts, when I am gone."

After his dinner, Sebastian went out, as Barlasch had predicted. He said nothing to Desiree of Charles or of the future. There was nothing to be said, perhaps. He did not ask why Mathilde was absent. In the stillness of the house, he could probably hear her moving in her rooms upstairs.

He had not been long gone when Mathilde came down, dressed to go out. She came into the kitchen where Desiree was doing the work of the absent Lisa, who had reluctantly gone to her home on the Baltic coast. Mathilde stood by the kitchen table and ate some bread.

"The Grafin has arranged to quit Dantzig to-morrow," she said. "I am going to ask her to take me with her."

Desiree nodded and made no comment. Mathilde went to the door, but paused there. Without looking round, she stood thinking deeply. They had grown from childhood together—motherless—with a father whom neither understood. Together they had faced the difficulties of life; the hundred petty difficulties attending a woman's life in a strange land, among neighbours who bear the sleepless grudge of unsatisfied curiosity. They had worked together for their daily bread. And now the full stream of life had swept them together from the safe moorings of childhood.

"Will you come too?" asked Mathilde. "All that he says about Dantzig is true."

"No, thank you," answered Desiree, gently enough. "I will wait here. I must wait in Dantzig."

"I cannot," said Mathilde, half excusing herself. "I must go. I cannot help it. You understand?"

"Yes," said Desiree, and nothing more.

Had Mathilde asked her the question six months ago, she would have said "No." But she understood now, not that Mathilde could love De Casimir; that was beyond her individual comprehension, but that there was no alternative now.

Soon after Mathilde had gone, Barlasch returned.

"If Mademoiselle Mathilde is going, she will have to go to-morrow," he said. "Those that are coming in at the gates now are the rearguard of the Heudelet Division which was driven out of Elbing by the Cossacks three days ago."

He sat mumbling to himself by the fire, and only turned to the supper which Desiree had placed in readiness for him when she quitted the room and went upstairs. It was he who opened the door for Mathilde, who returned in half an hour. She thanked him absent-mindedly and went upstairs. He could hear the sisters talking together in a low voice in the drawing-room, which he had never seen, at the top of the stairs.

Then Desiree came down, and he helped her to find in a shed in the yard one of those travelling-trunks which he had recognized as being of French manufacture. He took off his boots, and carried it upstairs for her.

It was ten o'clock before Sebastian came in. He nodded his thanks to Barlasch, and watched him bolt the door. He made no inquiry as to Mathilde, but extinguished the lamp, and went to his room. He never mentioned her name again.

Early the next morning, the girls were astir. But Barlasch was before them, and when Desiree came down, she found the kitchen fire alight. Barlasch was cleaning a knife, and nodded a silent good morning. Desiree's eyes were red, and Barlasch must have noted this sign of grief, for he gave a contemptuous laugh, and continued his occupation.

It was barely daylight when the Grafin's heavy, old-fashioned carriage drew up in front of the house. Mathilde came down, thickly veiled and in her travelling furs. She did not seem to see Barlasch, and omitted to thank him for carrying her travelling-trunk to the carriage.

He stood on the terrace beside Desiree until the carriage had turned the corner into the Pfaffengasse.

"Bah!" he said, "let her go. There is no stopping them, when they are like that. It is the curse—of the Garden of Eden."



CHAPTER XXV. A DESPATCH.



In counsel it is good to see dangers; and in execution not to see them unless they be very great.

Mathilde had told Desiree that Colonel de Casimir made no mention of Charles in his letter to her. Barlasch was able to supply but little further information on the matter.

"It was given to me by the Captain Louis d'Arragon at Thorn," he said. "He handled it as if it were not too clean. And he had nothing to say about it. You know his way, for the rest. He says little; but he knows the look of things. It seemed that he had promised to deliver the letter—for some reason, who knows what? and he kept his promise. The man was not dying by any chance—that De Casimir?"

And his little sharp eyes, reddened by the smoke of camp-fires, inflamed by the glare of sun on snow, searched her face. He was thinking of the treasure.

"Oh no!"

"Was he ill at all?"

"He was in bed," answered Desiree, doubtfully.

Barlasch scratched his head without ceremony, and fell into a long train of thought.

"Do you know what I think?" he said at length. "I think that De Casimir was not ill at all—any more than I am; I, Barlasch. Not so ill, perhaps, as I am, for I have an indigestion. It is always there at the summit of the stomach. It is horse without salt."

He paused and rubbed his chest tenderly.

"Never eat horse without salt," he put in parenthetically.

"I hope never to eat it at all," answered Desiree. "What about Colonel de Casimir?"

He waved her aside as a babbler who broke in upon his thoughts. These seemed to be lodged in his mouth, for, when reflecting, he chewed and mumbled with his lips.

"Listen," he said at length. "This is De Casimir. He goes to bed and lets his beard grow—half an inch of beard will keep any man in the hospital. You nod your head. Yes; I thought so. He knows that the viceroy, with the last of the army, is at Thorn. He keeps quiet. He waits in his roadside inn until the last of the army has gone. He waits until the Russians come, and to them he hands over the Emperor's possessions—all the papers, the maps, the despatches. For that he will be rewarded by the Emperor Alexander, who has already promised pardon to all Poles who have taken arms against Russia and now submit. De Casimir will be allowed to retain his own baggage. He has no loot taken at Moscow—oh no! Only his own baggage. Ah—that man! See, I spit him out."

And it is painful to record that he here resorted to graphic illustration.

"Ah!" he went on triumphantly, "I know. I can see right into the mind of such a man. I will tell you why. It is because I am that sort of man myself."

"You do not seem to have been so successful—since you are poor," said Desiree, with a laugh.

He frowned at her apparently in speechless anger, seeking an answer. But for the moment he could think of none, so he turned to the knives again, which he was cleaning on a board on the kitchen-table. At length he paused and glanced at Desiree.

"And your husband," he said slowly. "Remember that he is a partner with this De Casimir. They hunt together. I know it; for I was in Moscow. Ah! that makes you stand stiffly, and push your chin out."

He went on cleaning the knives, and, without looking at her, seemed to be speaking his own thoughts aloud.

"Yes! He is a traitor. And he is worse than the other; for he is no Pole, but a Frenchman. And if he returns to France, the Emperor will say: 'Where are my despatches, my maps, my papers, which were given into your care?'"

He finished the thought with three gestures, which seemed to illustrate the placing of a man against a wall and shooting him. His meaning could not be mistaken.

"And that is what the patron means when he says that Monsieur Charles Darragon will not return to Dantzig. I knew that he meant that last night, when he was so angry—on the mat."

"And why did you not tell me?"

Barlasch looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, before replying slowly and impressively.

"Because, if I had told you, you might have decided to quit Dantzig with Mademoiselle Mathilde, and go hunting your husband in a country overrun by desperate fugitives and untamed Cossacks. And I did not want that. I want you here—in Dantzig; in the Frauengasse; in this kitchen; under my hand—so that I can take care of you till the war is over. I—who speak to you—Papa Barlasch, at your service. And there is not another man in the world who will do it so well. No; not one."

And his eyes flashed as he threw the knives into a drawer.

"But why should you do all this for me?" asked Desiree. "You could have gone home to France—quite easily—and have left us to our fate here in Dantzig. Why did you not go home?"

Barlasch looked at her with surprise, not unmixed with a sudden dumb disappointment. He was preparing to go out according to his wont immediately after breakfast; for Lisa had unconsciously hit the mark when she compared him to a cat. He had the regular and self-contained habits of that unobtrusive friend. He buttoned his rough coat slowly, and looked round the kitchen with eyes dimly wistful. He was very old and ragged and homeless.

"Is it not enough," he said, "that we are friends?"

He went towards the door, but came back and warned her by the familiar upheld finger not to let her attention wander from his words.

"You will be glad yet that I have stayed. It is because I speak a little plainly of your husband that you wish me gone. Bah! What does it matter? All men are alike. We are only men—not angels. And you can go on loving him all the same. You are not particular, you women. You can love anything—even a man like that."

And he went out muttering anathemas on the hearts of all women.

"It seems," he said, "that a woman can love anything."

Which is true; and a very good thing for some of us. For without that Heaven-sent capacity the world could not go on at all.

It was later in the day when Barlasch made his way into the low and smoke-grimed Bier Halle of the Weissen Ross'l. He must have known Sebastian's habits, for he went straight to that corner of the great room where the violin-player usually sat. The stout waitress—a country girl of no intelligence, smiled broadly at the sight of such a ragged customer as she followed him down the length of the sawdust-strewn floor.

Sebastian's face showed no surprise when he looked up and recognized the new-comer. The surrounding tables were empty. It was too early in the evening for the regular customers, whose numbers, moreover, had been sadly thinned during the last few months. For the peaceful Dantzigers, remembering the siege of seven years ago, had mostly fled at the first mention of the word.

Sebastian nodded in answer to Barlasch's somewhat ceremonious bow, and by a gesture invited him to be seated on the chair upon which he had already laid his hand. The atmosphere of the room was warm, and Barlasch laid aside his sheepskin coat, as he had seen the great and the rich divest themselves of their sables. He turned sharply and caught the waitress with an amused smile still on her face. He drew her attention to a little pool of beer on the table, and stood until she had made good this lapse in her duty. Then he pointed to Sebastian's mug of beer and dismissed her giggling, to get one for him of the same size and contents.

Making sure that there was no one within earshot, he waited until Sebastian's dreamy eye met his, and then said—

"It is time we understood each other."

A light of surprise—passing and half-indifferent—flashed into Sebastian's eyes and vanished again at once when he saw Barlasch had meant nothing: made no sign or countersign with his hand.

"By all means, my friend," he answered.

"I delivered your letters," said Barlasch, "at Thorn and at the other places."

"I know; I have already had answers. You would be wise to forget the incident."

Barlasch shrugged his shoulders.

"You were paid," said Sebastian, jumping to a natural conclusion.

"A little," admitted Barlasch, "a small little—but it was not that. I always get paid in advance, when I can. Except by the Emperor. He owes me some—that citizen. It was another question. In the house I am friends with all—with Lisa who has gone—with Mademoiselle Mathilde who has gone—with Mademoiselle Desiree, so-called Madame Darragon, who remains. With all except you. Why should we not be friends?"

"But we are friends—" protested Sebastian, with a bow. As if in confirmation of the statement, he held out his beer-mug, and Barlasch touched it with the rim of his own before drinking. Sebastian's attitude, his bow, his manner of drinking, were those of the Court; Barlasch was distinctly of the camp. But these were strange days, and all society had been turned topsy-turvy by one man.

"Then," said Barlasch, licking his lips, "let us understand one another. You say there will be no siege. I say you are wrong. You think that the Dantzigers will rise in answer to the Emperor Alexander's proclamations, and turn the French out. I say the Dantzigers' stomachs are too big. I say that Rapp will hold Dantzig, and that the Russians will not take it by storm, because they are too weak. There will be a siege, and a long one. Are you and Mademoiselle and I going to sit it out in the Frauengasse together?"

"We shall be honoured to have you as our guest," answered Sebastian, with that levity which went before the Revolution, and was never understood of the people.

Barlasch did not understand it. He glanced doubtfully at his companion, and sipped his beer.

"Then I will begin to-night."

"Begin what, my friend?"

Barlasch waved aside all petty detail.

"My preparations. I go out about ten o'clock—after you are in. I will take the key of the front door, and let myself in when I come back. I shall make two journeys. Under the kitchen floor is a large hollow space. I fill that with bags of corn."

"But where will you get the corn, my friend?"

"I know where to get it—corn and other things. Salt I have already—enough for a year. Other things I can get for three months."

"But we have no money to pay for them."

"Bah!"

"You mean you will steal them," suggested Sebastian, not without a ring of contempt in his mincing voice.

"A soldier never steals," answered Barlasch, carelessly announcing a great truth.

Sebastian laughed. It was obvious that his mind, absorbed in great thought, heeded small things not at all. His companion pushed his fur cap to the back of his head, and ruffled his hair forward.

"That is not all," he said at length. He looked round the vast room, which was almost deserted. The stout waitress was polishing pewter mugs at the bar. "You say you have already had answers to those letters. It is a great organization—your secret society—whatever it is called. It delivers letters all over Prussia—eh? and Poland perhaps—or farther still."

Sebastian shrugged one shoulder, and made no answer for some time.

"I have already told you," he said impatiently, at length, "to forget the incident; you were paid."

By way of reply, the old soldier laboriously emptied his pockets, searching the most remote of them for small copper coins. He counted slowly and carefully until he had made up a thaler.

"But it is not my turn to be paid this time. It is I who pay."

He held out his hand with a pound weight of base metal in it, but Sebastian refused the money with a sudden assumption of his cold and scornful manner, oddly out of keeping with his humble surroundings.

"As between friends—" suggested Barlasch, and, on receiving a more decided negative, returned the coins to his pocket, not without satisfaction.

"I want your friends to pass on a letter for me—I am willing to pay," he said in a whisper. "A letter to Captain Louis d'Arragon—it concerns the happiness of Mademoiselle Desiree. Do not shake your head. Think before you refuse. The letter will be an open one—six words or so—telling the Captain that his cousin, Mademoiselle's husband, is not in Dantzig, and cannot now return here since the last of the rearguard entered the city this morning."

Sebastian seemed to be considering the matter, and Barlasch was quick to combat possible objections.

"The Captain went to Konigsberg. He is there now. Your friends can easily find him, and give him the letter. It is of great importance to Mademoiselle. The Captain is not looking for Monsieur Charles Darragon, because he thinks that he is here in Dantzig. Colonel de Casimir assured him that Mademoiselle would find him here. Where is he—that Monsieur Charles—I wonder? It is of great importance to Mademoiselle. The Captain would perhaps continue his search."

"Where is your letter?" asked Sebastian.

By way of reply, Barlasch laid on the table a sheet of paper.

"You must write it," he said. "My hand is injured. I write not badly, you understand. But this evening I do not feel that my hand is well enough."

So, with the sticky, thick ink of the Weissen Ross'l, Sebastian wrote the letter, and Barlasch, forgetting his scholarly acquirements, took the pen and made a mark beneath his own name written at the foot of it.

Then he went out, and left Sebastian to pay for the beer.



CHAPTER XXVI. ON THE BRIDGE.



They that are above Have ends in everything.

A lame man was standing on the bridge that crosses the Neuer Pregel from the Kant Strasse—which is the centre of the city of Konigsberg—to the island known as the Kneiphof. This bridge is called the Kramer Brucke, and may be described as the heart of the town. From it on either hand diverge the narrow streets that run along the river bank, busy with commerce, crowded with the narrow sleighs that carry wood from the Pregel up into the town.

The wider streets—such as the Kant Strasse, running downhill from the royal castle to the river, and the Kneiphof'sche Langgasse, leading southward to the Brandenburg gate and the great world—must needs make use of the Kramer Brucke. Here, it may be said, every man in the town must sooner or later pass in the execution of his daily business, whether he go about it on foot or in a sleigh with a pair of horses. Here the idler and those grave professors from the University, which was still mourning the death of the aged Kant, nearly always passed in their thoughtful and conscientious promenades.

Here this lame man, a cobbler by trade, plying his quiet calling in a house in the Neuer Markt, where the lime-trees grow close to the upper windows, had patiently kept watch for three days. He was, like many lame men, of an abnormal width and weight. He had a large, square, dogged face, which seemed to promise that he would wait there till the crack of doom rather than abandon a quest.

It was very cold—mid-winter within a few miles of the frozen Baltic on the very verge of Russia, at that point where old Europe stretches a long arm out into the unknown. The cobbler was wrapped in a sheepskin coat, which stood out all round him with the stiffness of wood, so that he seemed to be living inside a box. To keep himself warm he occasionally limped across from end to end of the bridge, but never went farther. At times he leant his arms on the stone wall at the Kant Strasse end of the bridge, and looked down into the Lower Fish Market, where women from Pillau and the Baltic shores—mere bundles of clothes—stood over their baskets of fish frozen hard like sticks. It was a silent market. One cannot haggle long when a minute's exposure to the air will give a frost-bite to the end of the nose. The would-be purchaser can scarcely make an effective bargain through a fringe of icicles that rattle against his lips if he open them.

The Pregel had been frozen for three months, with only the one temporary thaw in November which cost Napoleon so many thousands at his broken bridge across the Beresina. Though no water had flowed beneath this bridge, many strange feet had passed across it.

It had vibrated beneath Napoleon's heavy carriage, under the lumbering guns that Macdonald took northward to blockade Riga. Within the last few weeks it had given passage to the last of the retreating army, a mere handful of heartsick fugitives. Macdonald with his staff had been ignominiously driven across it by the Cossacks who followed hard after them, the great marshal still wild with rage at the defection of Yorck and the Prussian contingent.

And now the Cossacks on their spare and ill-tempered horses passed to and fro, wild men under an untamed leader whose heart was hardened to stone by bereavement. The cobbler looked at them with a countenance of wood. It was hard to say whether he preferred them to the French, or was indifferent to one as to the other. He looked at their boots with professional disdain. For all men must look at the world from their own standpoint and consider mankind in the light of their own interests. Thus those who live on the greed or the vanity, or batten on the charity of their neighbour, learn to watch the lips.

The cobbler, by reason of looking at the lower end of men, attracted little attention from the passer-by. He who has his eyes on the ground passes unheeded. For the surest way of awakening interest is to appear interested. It would seem that this cobbler was waiting for a pair of boots not made in Konigsberg. And on the third day his expressionless black eyes lighted on feet not shod in Poland, or France, or Germany, nor yet in square-toed Russia.

The owner of these far-travelled boots was a lightly-built dark-faced man, with eyes quietly ubiquitous. He caught the interested glance of the cobbler, and turned to look at him again with the uneasiness that is bred of war. The cobbler instantly hobbled towards him.

"Will you help a poor man?" he said.

"Why should I?" was the answer, with one hand already half out of its thick glove. "You are not hungry; you have never been starved in your life."

The German was quick enough, but it was not quite the Prussian German.

The cobbler looked at the speaker slowly.

"An Englishman?" he asked.

And the other nodded.

"Come this way."

The cobbler hobbled towards the Kneiphof, where the streets are quiet, and the Englishman followed him. At the corner of the Kohl Markt he turned and looked, not at the man, but at his boots.

"You are a sailor?" he said.

"Yes."

"I was told to look for an English sailor—Louis d'Arragon."

"Then you have found me," was the reply.

Still the cobbler hesitated.

"How am I to know it?" he asked suspiciously.

"Can you read?" asked D'Arragon. "I can prove who I am—if I want to. But I am not sure that I want to."

"Oh! it is only a letter—of no importance. Some private business of your own. It comes from Dantzig—written by one whose name begins with 'B.'"

"Barlasch," suggested D'Arragon quietly, as he took from his pocket a paper which he unfolded and held beneath the eyes of the cobbler. It was a passport written in three languages. If the man could read, he was not anxious to boast of an accomplishment so far above his station; but he glanced at the paper, not without a practised skill, to seize the essential parts of it.

"Yes, that is the name," he said, searching in his pockets. "The letter is an open one. Here it is."

In passing the letter, the man made a scarcely perceptible movement of the hand which might have been a signal.

"No," said D'Arragon, "I do not belong to the Tugendbund or to any other secret society. We have need of no such associations in my country."

The cobbler laughed, not without embarrassment.

"You have a quick eye," he said. "It is a great country, England. I have seen the river full of English ships before Napoleon chased you off the seas."

D'Arragon smiled as he unfolded the letter.

"He has not done it yet," he said, with that spirit which enables mariners of the Anglo-Saxon race to be amused when there is a talk of supremacy on the high seas. He read the letter carefully, and his face hardened.

"I was instructed," said the cobbler, "to give you the letter, and at the same time to inform you that any assistance or facilities you may require will be forth-coming; besides..." he broke off and pointed with his thick, leather-stained finger, "that writing is not the writing of him who signs."

"He who signs cannot write at all."

"That writing," went on the cobbler, "is a passport in any German state. He who carries a letter written in that hand can live and travel free anywhere from here to the Rhine or the Danube."

"Then I am lucky in possessing a powerful friend," said D'Arragon, "for I know who wrote this letter. I think I may say he is a friend of mine."

"I am sure of it. I have already been told so," said the cobbler. "Have you a lodging in Konigsberg? No? Then you can lodge in my house."

Without awaiting a reply, which he seemed to consider a foregone conclusion, he limped down the Kohl Markt towards the steps leading to the river, which in winter is a thoroughfare.

"I live in the Neuer Markt," he said breathlessly, as he laboured onwards. "I have waited for you three days on that bridge. Where have you been all this time?"

"Avoiding the French," replied D'Arragon curtly. Respecting his own affairs he was reticent, as commanders and other lonely men must always be. They walked side by side on the dusty and trodden ice without further speech. At the steps from the river to Neuer Markt, D'Arragon gave the lame man his hand, and glanced a second time at the fingers which clasped his own. They had not been born to toil, but had had it thrust upon them.