Barlasch of the Guard

CHAPTER XVI. THE FIRST OF THE EBB.

The days were short, and November was drawing to its end when Barlasch returned to Dantzig. Already the frost, holding its own against a sun that seemed to linger in the North that year, exercised its sway almost to midday, and drew a mist from the level plains.

The autumn had been one of unprecedented splendour, making the imaginative whisper that Napoleon, like a second Joshua, could exact obedience even from the sun. A month earlier, soon after the retreat was ordered, the nights had begun to be cold, but the days remained brilliant. Now the rivers were shrouded in white mist, and still water was frozen.

Barlasch seemed to take it for understood that a billet holds good throughout a whole campaign. But the door of No. 36 Frauengasse was locked when he turned its iron handle. He knocked, and waited on the step.

It was Desiree who opened the door at length—Desiree, grown older, with something new in her eyes. Barlasch, sure of his entree, had already removed his boots, which he carried in his hand; this added to a certain surreptitiousness in his attitude. A handkerchief was bound over his left eye. He wore his shako still, but the rest of his uniform verged on the fantastic. Under a light-blue Bavarian cavalry cape he wore a peasant's homespun shirt, and he carried no arms.

He pushed past Desiree rather unceremoniously, glad to get within doors. He was very lame, and of his blue knitted stockings only the legs remained; he was barefoot.

He limped towards the kitchen, glancing over his shoulder to make sure that Desiree shut the door. The chair he had made his own stood just within the open door of the kitchen. It was nine o'clock in the morning, and Lisa had gone to market. Barlasch sat down.

“Voila,” he said, and that was all. But by a gesture he described the end of the world. Then he scowled at her with his available eye with suspicion, and she turned away suddenly, as one may who has not a clear conscience.

“What is the matter with your eye?” she asked, in order to break the silence. He laid aside his hat, and his ragged hair, quite white, fell to his shoulders. By way of answer, he unknotted the bloodstained dusky handkerchief, and looked up at her. The hidden eye was uninjured and as bright as the other.

“Nothing,” he answered, and he confirmed the statement by a low-born wink. More than once he glanced, with a glaring light in his eye, towards the cupboard where Lisa kept the bread, and quite suddenly Desiree knew that he was starving. She ran to the cupboard, and hurriedly set down on the table before him what was there. It was not much—a piece of cold meat and a whole loaf.

He had taken off his haversack, and was fumbling in it with unsteady hands. At last he found that which he sought. It was wrapped in a silk scarf that must have come from Cashmere to Moscow, and from Moscow in his haversack with pieces of horseflesh and muddy roots to Dantzig. With that awkwardness in giving and taking which belongs to his class, he held out to Desiree a little square “ikon” no bigger than a playing-card. It was of gold, set with diamonds, and the faces of the Virgin and Child were painted with exquisite delicacy.

“It is a thing to say your prayers to,” he said gruffly.

By an effort he kept his eyes averted from the food on the table.

“I met a baker on the bridge,” he said, “and offered it to him for a loaf, but he refused.”

And there was a whole history of human suffering and temptation—of the human fall—in his curt laugh. While Desiree was looking at the treasure in speechless admiration, he turned suddenly and took the bread and meat in his grimy hands. His crooked fingers closed over the loaf, making the crust crack, and for a second the expression of his face was not human. Then he hurried to the room that had been his, like a dog that seeks to hide its greed in its kennel.

In a surprisingly short time he came back, the greyness all gone from his face, though his eyes still glittered with the dry, hard light of starvation. He went back to the chair near the door, and sat down.

“Seven hundred miles,” he said, looking down at his feet with a shake of the head, “seven hundred miles in six weeks.”

Then he glanced at her and out through the open door, to make sure none could overhear.

“Because I was afraid,” he added in a whisper. “I am easily frightened. I am not brave.”

Desiree shook her head and laughed. Women have from all time accepted the theory that a uniform makes a man courageous.

“They had to abandon the guns,” he went on, “soon after quitting Moscow. The horses were starving. There was a steep hill, and the guns were left at the bottom. Then I began to be afraid. There were some marching with candelabras on their backs and nothing in their carnassieres. They carried a million francs on their shoulders and death in their faces. I was afraid. I carried salt—salt—and nothing else. Then one day I saw the Emperor's face. That was enough. The same night I crept away while the others slept round the fire. They looked like a masquerade. Some of them wore ermine. Oh! I was afraid, I tell you. I only had the salt and some horse. There was plenty of that on the road. And that toy. I found it in Moscow. I stood in a cellar, as big as this room, full of such things. But one thinks of one's life. I only carried salt, and that picture for you... to say your prayers to. The good God will hear you, perhaps; He has no time to listen to us others.”

And he used the last words as a French peasant, which is a survival of serfdom that has come down through the furnace of the Revolution.

“But I cannot take it,” said Desiree. “It is worth a million francs.”

He looked at her fiercely.

“You think that I look for something in return?”

“Oh no!” she answered, “I have nothing to give you in return. I am as poor as you.”

“Then we can be friends,” he said. He was eyeing surreptitiously a mug of beer which Desiree had set before him on the table. Some instinct, or the teaching of the last two months, made it repugnant to him to eat or drink beneath his neighbour's eye. He was a sorry-looking figure, not far removed from the animals, and in his downward journey he had picked up, perhaps, the instinct which none can explain, telling an animal to take its food in secret.

Desiree went to the window, turning her back to him, and looked out into the yard. She heard him drink, and set the mug down again with a gulp.

“You were in Moscow?” she said at length, half turning towards him so that he could see her profile and her short upper lip, which was parted as if to ask a question which she did not put into words. He looked her slowly up and down beneath his heavy eyebrows, his little cunning eyes alight with suspicion. He watched her parted lips, which were tilted at the corners, showing humour and a nature quick to laugh or suffer. Then he jerked his head upwards as if he saw the unasked question quivering there, and bore her some malice for her silence.

“Yes! I was in Moscow,” he said, watching the colour fade from her face. “And I saw him—your husband—there. I was on guard outside his door the night we entered the city. It was I who carried to the post the letter he wrote you. He was very anxious that it should reach you. You received it—that love-letter?”

“Yes,” answered Desiree gravely, in no wise responding to a sudden forced gaiety in Papa Barlasch, which was only an evidence of the shyness with which rough men all the world over approach the subject of love. The gaiety lapsed into a sudden silence. He waited for her to ask a question, but in vain.

“I never saw him again,” went on Barlasch, “for the 'general' sounded, and I went out into the streets to find the city on fire. In a great army, as in a large country, one may easily lose one's own brother. But he will return—have no fear. He has good fortune—the fine gentleman.”

He stopped and scratched his head, looked at her sideways with a grimace of bewilderment.

“It is good news I bring you,” he muttered. “He was alive and well when we began the retreat. He was on the staff, and the staff had horses and carriages. They had bread to eat, I am told.”

“And you—what had you?” asked Desiree, over her shoulder.

“No matter,” he answered gruffly, “since I am here.”

“And yet you believe in that man still,” flashed out Desiree, turning to face him.

Barlasch held up a warning finger, as if bidding her to be silent on a subject on which she was not capable of forming a judgment. He wagged his head from side to side and heaved a sigh.

“I tell you,” he said, “I saw his face after Malo-Jaroslavetz; we lost ten thousand that day. And I was afraid. For I saw in it that he was going to leave us as he did in Egypt. I am not afraid when he is there—not afraid of the Devil—or the bon Dieu, but when Napoleon is not there—” He broke off with a gesture describing abject terror.

“They say in Dantzig,” said Desiree, “that he will never get back across the Beresina, for the Russians are bringing two armies to stop him there. They say that the Prussians will turn against him.”

“Ah—they say that already?”

“Yes.”

He looked at her with a sudden light of anger in his eyes.

“Who has taught you to hate Napoleon?” he asked bluntly.

And again Desiree turned away from his glance as if she could not meet it.

“No one,” she answered.

“It is not the patron,” said Barlasch, muttering his thoughts as he hobbled to the door of his little room, and began unloading his belongings with a view to ablution; for he was a self-contained traveller, carrying with him all he required. “It is not the patron. Because such a hatred as his cannot be spoken of. It is not your husband, because Napoleon is his god.”

He broke off with one of his violent jerks of the head, almost threatening to dislocate his neck, and looked at her fixedly.

“It is because you have grown into a woman since I went away.”

And out came his accusing finger, though Desiree had her back turned towards him, and there was none other to see.

“Ah!” he said, with deadly contempt, “I see, I see!”

“Did you expect me to grow up into a man?” asked Desiree, over her shoulder.

Barlasch stood in the doorway, his lips and jaw moving as if he were masticating winged words. At length, having failed to find a tremendous answer, he softly closed the door.

This was not the only wise old veteran of the Grand Army to see which way the wind blew; for many another after the battle of Malo-Jaroslavetz packed upon his back such spoil as he could carry, and set off on foot for France. For the cold had come at length, and not a horse in the French army was roughed for the snowy roads, nor, indeed, had provision been made to rough them. This was a sign not lost upon those who had horses to care for. The Emperor, who forgot nothing, had forgotten this. He who foresaw everything, had omitted to foresee the winter. He had ordered a retreat from Moscow, in the middle of October, of an army in summer clothing, without provision for the road. The only hope was to retreat through a new line of country not despoiled by the enormous army in its advance of every grain of corn, every blade of grass. But this hope was frustrated by the Russians who, hemming them in, forced them to keep the road along which they had made so triumphant a march on Moscow.

Already, in the ranks, it was whispered that by the light of the burning city some had perceived dark forms moving on the distant plains—a Russian army passing westward in front of them to await and cut them off at the passage of some river. The Russians had fought well at Borodino: they fought desperately at Malo-Jaroslavetz, which town was taken and retaken eleven times and left in cinders.

The Grand Army was no longer in a position to choose its way. It was forced to cross again the battlefield of Borodino, where thirty thousand dead lay yet unburied. But Napoleon was still with them, his genius flashing out at times with something of the fire which had taken men's breath away and burnt his name indelibly into the pages of the world's history. Even when hard pressed, he never missed a chance of attacking. The enemy never made a mistake that he did not give them reason to rue it.

To the waiting world came at length the news that the winter, so long retarded, had closed down over Russia. In Dantzig, so near the frontier, a hundred rumours chased each other through the streets; and day by day Antoine Sebastian grew younger and gayer. It seemed as if a weight long laid upon his heart had been lifted at last. He made a journey to Konigsberg soon after Barlasch's return, and came back with eager eyes. His correspondence was enormous. He had, it seemed, a hundred friends who gave him news and asked something in exchange—advice, encouragement, warning. And all the while men whispered that Prussia would ally herself to Russia, Sweden, and England.

From Paris came news of a growing discontent. For France, among a multitude of virtues, has one vice unpardonable to Northern men: she turns from a fallen friend.

Soon followed the news of Beresina—a poor little river of Lithuania—where the history of the world hung for a day as on a thread. But a flash of the dying genius surmounted superhuman difficulties, and the catastrophe was turned into a disaster. The divisions of Victor and Oudinot—the last to preserve any semblance of military discipline—were almost annihilated. The French lost twelve thousand killed or drowned in the river, sixteen thousand prisoners, twelve of the remaining guns. But they were across the Beresina. There was no longer a Grand Army, however. There was no army at all—only a starving, struggling trail of men stumbling through the snow, without organization or discipline or hope.

It was a disaster on the same gigantic scale as the past victories—a disaster worthy of such a conqueror. Even his enemies forgot to rejoice. They caught their breath and waited.

And suddenly came the news that Napoleon was in Paris.

CHAPTER XVII. A FORLORN HOPE.

“It is time to do something,” said Papa Barlasch on the December morning when the news reached Dantzig that Napoleon was no longer with the army—that he had made over the parody of command of the phantom army to Murat, King of Naples—that he had passed like an evil spirit unknown through Poland, Prussia, Germany, travelling twelve hundred miles night and day at breakneck speed, alone, racing to Paris to save his throne.

“It is time to do something,” said all Europe, when it was too late. For Napoleon was himself again—alert, indomitable, raising a new army, calling on France to rise to such heights of energy and vitality as only France can compass; for the colder nations of the North lack the imagination that enables men to pit themselves against the gods at the bidding of some stupendous will, only second to the will of God Himself.

“Go to Dantzig, and hold it till I come,” Napoleon had said to Rapp. “Retreat to Poland, and hold on to anything you can till I come back with a new army,” he had commanded Murat and Prince Eugene.

“It is time to do something,” said all the conquered nations, looking at each other for initiation. And lo! the Master of Surprises struck them dumb by his sudden apparition in his own capital, with all the strings of the European net gathered as if by magic into his own hands again.

While everybody told his neighbour that it was time to do something, no one knew what to do. For it has pleased the Creator to put a great many talkers into this world and only a few men of action to make its history.

Papa Barlasch knew what to do, however.

“Where is that sailor?” he asked Desiree, when she had told him the news which Mathilde brought in from the streets. “He who took the patron's valise that night—the cousin of your husband.”

“There is a man at Zoppot who will tell you,” she answered.

“Then I go to Zoppot.”

Barlasch had lived unmolested in the Frauengasse since his return. He was an old man, ill-clad, with a bloody handkerchief bound over one eye. No one asked him any questions, except Sebastian, who heard again and again the tale of Moscow—how the army which had crossed into Russia four hundred thousand strong was reduced to a hundred thousand when the retreat began; how handmills were issued to the troops to grind corn which did not exist; how the horses died in thousands and the men in hundreds from starvation; how God at last had turned his face from Napoleon.

“Something must be done. The patron will do nothing; he is in the clouds, he is dreaming dreams of a new France, that bourgeois. I am an old man. Yes, I will go to Zoppot.”

“You mean that we should have heard from Charles before now,” said Desiree.

“Name of thunder! he may be in Paris!” exclaimed Barlasch, with the sudden anger that anxiety commands. “He is on the staff, I tell you.”

For suspense is one of the most contagious of human emotions, and makes a quicker call upon our sympathy than any other. Do we not feel such a desire that our neighbour may know the worst without delay, that we race to impart it to him?

Nor was Desiree alone in the trial which had drawn certain lines about her gay lips; for Mathilde had told her father and sister that should Colonel de Casimir return from the war he would ask her hand in marriage.

“And that other—the Colonel,” added Barlasch, glancing at Mathilde, “he is on the staff too. They are safe enough, I tell you that. They are doubtless together. They were together at Moscow. I saw them, and took an order from them. They were... at their work.”

Mathilde did not like Papa Barlasch. She would, it seemed, rather have no news at all of de Casimir than learn it from the old soldier, for she quitted the room without even troubling to throw him a glance of disdain.

Barlasch waited with working lips until the sound of her footsteps ceased on the stairs. Then he pushed across the kitchen table a piece of writing-paper, rather yellow and woolly. It had been to Moscow and back.

“Write a word to him,” he said. “I will take it to Zoppot.”

“But you can send a message by the fisherman whose name I have given you,” answered Desiree.

“And will he heed the message? Will he come ashore at a word from me—only Barlasch? Remember it is his life that he carries in his hand. An English sailor with a French name! Thunder of thunder! They would shoot him like a rat!”

Desiree shook her head; but Barlasch was not to be denied. He brought pen and ink from the dresser, and pushed them across the table.

“I would not ask it,” he said, “if it was not necessary. Do you think he will mind the danger? He will like it. He will say to me, 'Barlasch, I thank you.' Ah? I know him. Write. He will come.”

“Why?” asked Desiree.

“Why? How should I know that? He came before when you asked him.”

Desiree leant over the table and wrote six words:

“Come, if you can come safely.”

Barlasch took up the paper, and, pushing up the bandage which had served to bring him unharmed through Russia, he frowned at it without understanding.

“It is not all writings that I can read,” he admitted. “Have you signed it?”

“No.”

“Then sign something that he will know, and no other—they might shoot me. Your baptismal name.”

And she wrote “Desiree” after the six words.

Barlasch folded the paper carefully and placed it in the lining of an old felt hat of Sebastian's which he now wore. He bound a scarf over his ears, after the manner of those who live on the Baltic shores in winter.

“You can leave the rest to me,” he said; and, with a nod and a grimace expressive of cunning, he left her.

He did not return that night. The days were short now, for the winter was well set in. It was nearly dark the next afternoon and very cold when he came back. He sent Lisa upstairs for Desiree.

“First,” he said, “there is a question for the patron. Will he quit Dantzig?—that is the question.”

“No,” answered Desiree.

“Rapp is coming,” said Barlasch, emphasizing each point with one finger against the side of his nose. “He will hold Dantzig. There will be a siege. Let the patron make no mistake. It will not be like the last one. Rapp was outside then; he will be inside this time. He will hold Dantzig till the bottom falls out of the world.”

“My father will not leave,” said Desiree. “He has said so. He knows that Rapp is coming, with the Russians behind him.”

“But,” interrupted Barlasch, “he thinks that Prussia will turn and declare war against Napoleon. That may be. Who knows? The question is, Can the patron be induced to quit Dantzig?”

Desiree shook her head.

“It is not I,” said Barlasch, “who ask the question. You understand?”

“Yes, I understand. My father will not quit Dantzig.”

Whereupon Barlasch made a gesture conveying a desire to think as kindly of Antoine Sebastian as he could.

“In half an hour,” he said, “when it is dark, will you come for a walk with me along the Langfuhr road—where the unfinished ramparts are?”

Desiree looked at him and hesitated.

“Oh—good—if you are afraid—” said Barlasch.

“I am not afraid—I will come,” she answered quickly.

The snow was hard when they set out, and squeaked under their feet, as it does with a low thermometer.

“We shall leave no tracks,” said Barlasch, as he led the way off the Langfuhr road towards the river. There was broken ground here, where earthworks had been begun and never completed. The trees had been partly cut, and beneath the snow were square mounds showing where the timber had been piled up. But since the departure of Rapp, all had been left incomplete.

Barlasch turned towards Desiree and pointed out a rising knoll of land with fir-trees on it—an outline against the sky where a faint aurora borealis lit the north. She understood that Louis was waiting there, and must necessarily see them approaching across the untrodden snow. For an instant she lingered, and Barlasch turning, glanced at her sharply over his shoulder. She had come against her will, and her companion knew it. Her feet were heavy with misgiving, like the feet of one who treads an uncertain road into a strange country. She had been afraid of Louis d'Arragon when she first caught sight of him in the Frauengasse. The fear of him was with her now, and would not depart until he himself swept it away by the first word he spoke.

He came out from beneath the trees, made a few steps forward, and then stopped. Again Desiree lingered, and Barlasch, who was naturally impatient, turned and took her by the arm.

“Is it the snow—that you find slippery?” he asked, not requiring an answer. A moment later Louis came forward.

“There is nothing but bad news,” he said laconically. “Barlasch will have told you; but there is no need to give up hope. The army has reached the Niemen; the rearguard has quitted Vilna. There is nothing for it but to go and look for him.”

“Who will go?” she asked quietly.

“I.”

He was looking at her with grave eyes trained to darkness. But she looked past him towards the sky, which was faintly lighted by the aurora. Her averted eyes and rigid attitude were not without some suggestion of guilt.

“My ship is ice-bound at Reval,” said D'Arragon, in a matter-of-fact way. “They have no use for me until the winter is over, and they have given me three months' leave.”

“To go to England?” she asked.

“To go anywhere I like,” he said, with a short laugh. “So I am going to look for Charles, and Barlasch will come with me.”

“At a price,” put in that soldier, in a shrewd undertone. “At a price.”

“A small one,” corrected Louis, turning to look at him with the close attention of one exploring a new country.

“Bah! You give what you can. One does not go back across the Niemen for pleasure. We bargained, and we came to terms. I got as much as I could.”

Louis laughed, as if this were the blunt truth.

“If I had more, I would give you more. It is the money I placed in a Dantzig bank for my cousin. I must take it out again, that is all.”

The last words were addressed to Desiree, as if he had acted in assurance of her approval.

“But I have more,” she said; “a little—not very much. We must not think of money. We must do everything to find him—to give him help, if he needs it.”

“Yes,” answered Louis, as if she had asked him a question. “We must do everything; but I have no more money.”

“And I have none with me. I have nothing that I can sell.”

She withdrew her fur mitten and held out her hand, as if to show that she had no rings, except the plain gold one on her third finger.

“You have the ikon I brought you from Moscow,” said Barlasch gruffly. “Sell that.”

“No,” answered Desiree; “I will not sell that.”

Barlasch laughed cynically.

“There you have a woman,” he said, turning to Louis. “First she will not have a thing, then she will not part with it.”

“Well,” said Desiree, with some spirit, “a woman may know her own mind.”

“Some do,” admitted Barlasch carelessly; “the happy ones. And since you will not sell your ikon, I must go for what Monsieur le capitaine offers me.

“Five hundred francs,” said Louis. “A thousand francs, if we succeed in bringing my cousin safely back to Dantzig.”

“It is agreed,” said Barlasch, and Desiree looked from one to the other with an odd smile of amusement. For women do not understand that spirit of adventure which makes the mercenary soldier, and urges the sailor to join an exploring expedition without hope of any reward beyond his daily pay, for which he is content to work and die loyally.

“And I,” she asked, “what am I to do?”

“We must know where to find you,” replied D'Arragon.

There was so much in the simple answer that Desiree fell into a train of thought. It did not seem much for her to do, and yet it was all. For it summed up in six words a woman's life: to wait till she is found.

“I shall wait in Dantzig,” she said at length.

Barlasch held up his finger close to her face so that she could not fail to see it, and shook it slowly from side to side commanding her careful and entire attention.

“And buy salt,” he said. “Fill a cupboard full of salt. It is cheap enough in Dantzig now. The patron will not think of it. He is a dreamer. But a dreamer awakes at length, and is hungry. It is I who tell you—Barlasch.”

He emphasized himself with a touch of his curved fingers on either shoulder.

“Buy salt,” he said, and walked away to a rising knoll to make sure that no one was approaching. The moon was just below the horizon, and a yellow glow was already in the sky.

Desiree and Louis were left alone. He was looking at her, but she was watching Barlasch with a still persistency.

“He said that it is the happy women who know their own minds,” she said slowly.

“I suppose he meant—Duty,” she added at length, when Louis made no sign of answering.

“Yes,” he said.

Barlasch was beckoning to her. She moved away, but stopped a few yards off, and looked at Louis again.

“Do you think it is any good trying?” she asked, with a short laugh.

“It is no good trying unless you mean to succeed,” he answered lightly. She laughed a second time and lingered, though Barlasch was calling her to come.

“Oh,” she said, “I am not afraid of you when you say things like that. It is what you leave unsaid. I am afraid of you, I think, because you expect so much.”

She tried to see his face.

“I am only an ordinary human being, you know,” she said warningly.

Then she followed Barlasch.

CHAPTER XVIII. MISSING.

During the first weeks of December the biting wind abated for a time, and immediately the snow came. It fell for days, until at length the grey sky seemed exhausted; for the flakes sailed downwards in twos and threes like the stragglers of an army bringing up the rear. Then the sun broke through again, and all the world was a dazzling white.

There had been a cessation in that stream of pitiable men who staggered across the bridge from the Konigsberg road. Some instinct had turned it southwards. Now it began again, and the rumour spread throughout the city that Rapp was coming. At length, in the middle of December, an officer brought word that Rapp with his staff would arrive next day.

Desiree heard the news without comment.

“You do not believe it?” asked Mathilde, who had come in with shining eyes and a pale face.

“Oh yes, I believe it.”

“Then you forget,” persisted Mathilde, “that Charles is on the staff. They may arrive to-night.”

While they were speaking Sebastian came in. He looked quickly from one to the other.

“You have heard the news?” he asked.

“That the General is coming back?” said Mathilde.

“No; not that. Though it is true. Macdonald is in full retreat on Dantzig. The Prussians have abandoned him—at last.”

He gave a queer laugh and stood looking towards the window with restless eyes that flitted from one object to another, as if he were endeavouring to follow in mind the quick course of events. Then he remembered Desiree and turned towards her.

“Rapp returns to-morrow,” he said. “We may presume that Charles is with him.”

“Yes,” said Desiree, in a lifeless voice.

Sebastian wrinkled his eyes and gave an apologetic laugh.

“We cannot offer him a fitting welcome,” he said, with a gesture of frustrated hospitality. “We must do what we can. You and he may, of course, consider this your home as long as it pleases you to remain with us. Mathilde, you will see that we have such delicacies in the house as Dantzig can now afford—and you, Desiree, will of course make such preparations as are necessary. It is well to remember, he may return... to-night.”

Desiree went towards the door while Mathilde laid aside the delicate needlework which seemed to absorb her mind and employ her fingers from morning till night. She made a movement as if to accompany her sister, but Desiree shook her head sharply and Mathilde remained where she was, leaving Desiree to go upstairs alone.

The day was already drawing to its long twilight, and at four o'clock the night came. Sebastian went out as usual, though he had caught cold. But Mathilde stayed at home. Desiree sent Lisa to the shops in the Langenmarkt, which is the centre of business and gossip in Dantzig. Lisa always brought home the latest news. Mathilde came to the kitchen to seek something when the messenger returned. She heard Lisa tell Desiree that a few more stragglers had come in, but they brought no news of the General. The house seemed lonely now that Barlasch was gone.

Throughout the night the sound of sleigh-bells could be faintly heard through the double windows, though no sleigh passed through the Frauengasse. A hundred times the bells seemed to come closer, and always Desiree was ready behind the curtains to see the light flash past into the Pfaffengasse. With a shiver of suspense she crept back to bed to await the next alarm. In the early morning, long before it was light, the dull thud of steps on the trodden snow called her to the window again. She caught her breath as she drew back the curtain; for through the long watches of the night she had imagined every possible form of return.

This must be Barlasch. Louis and Barlasch must, of course, have met Rapp on his homeward journey. On finding Charles, they had sent Barlasch back in advance to announce the safety of Desiree's husband. Louis would, of course, not come to Dantzig. He would go north to Russia, to Reval, and perhaps home to England—never to return.

But it was not Barlasch. It was a woman who staggered past under a burden of firewood which she had collected in the woods of Schottland, and did not dare to carry through the streets by day.

At last the clocks struck six, and, soon after, Lisa's heavy footstep made the stairs creak and crack.

Desiree went downstairs before daylight. She could hear Mathilde astir in her room, and the light of candles was visible under her door. Desiree busied herself with household affairs.

“I have not slept,” said Lisa bluntly, “for thinking that your husband might return, and fearing that we should make him wait in the street. But without doubt you would have heard him.”

“Yes, I should have heard him.”

“If it had been my husband, I should have been at the window all night,” said Lisa, with a gay laugh—and Desiree laughed too.

Mathilde seemed a long time in coming, and when at length she appeared Desiree could scarcely repress a movement of surprise. Mathilde was dressed, all in her best, as for a fete.

At breakfast Lisa brought the news told to her at the door that the Governor would re-enter the city in state with his staff at midday. The citizens were invited to decorate their streets, and to gather there to welcome the returning garrison.

“And the citizens will accept the invitation,” commented Sebastian, with a curt laugh. “All the world has sneered at Russia since the Empire existed—and yet it has to learn from Moscow what part a citizen may play in war. These good Dantzigers will accept the invitation.”

And he was right. For one reason or another the city did honour to Rapp. Even the Poles must have known by now that France had made tools of them. But as yet they could not realize that Napoleon had fallen. There were doubtless many spies in the streets that cold December day—one who listened for Napoleon; and another, peeping to this side and that, for the King of Prussia. Sweden also would need to know what Dantzig thought, and Russia must not be ignorant of the gossip in a great Baltic port.

Enveloped in their stiff sheepskins, concealed by the high collars which reached to the brim of their hats—showing nothing but eyes where the rime made old faces and young all alike, it was difficult for any to judge of his neighbour—whether he were Pole or Prussian, Dantziger or Swede. The women in thick shawls, with hoods or scarves concealing their faces, stood silently beside their husbands. It was only the children who asked a thousand questions, and got never an answer from the cautious descendants of a Hanseatic people.

“Is it the French or the Russians that are coming?” asked a child near to Desiree.

“Both,” was the answer.

“But which will come first?”

“Wait and see—silentium,” replied the careful Dantziger, looking over his shoulder.

Desiree had changed her clothes, and wore beneath her furs the dress that had been prepared for the journey to Zoppot so long ago. Mathilde had noticed the dress, which had not been seen for six months. Lisa, more loquacious, nodded to it as to a friend when helping Desiree with her furs.

“You have changed,” she said, “since you last wore it.”

“I have grown older—and fatter,” answered Desiree cheerfully.

And Lisa, who had no imagination, seemed satisfied with the explanation. But the change was in Desiree's eyes.

With Sebastian's permission—almost at his suggestion—they had selected the Grune Brucke as the point from which to see the sight. This bridge spans the Mottlau at the entrance to the Langenmarkt, and the roadway widens before it narrows again to pass beneath the Grunes Thor. There is rising ground where the road spreads like a fan, and here they could see and be seen.

“Let us hope,” said Sebastian, “that two of these gentlemen may perceive you as they pass.”

But he did not offer to accompany them.

By half-past eleven the streets were full. The citizens knew their governor, it seemed. He would not keep them waiting. Although Rapp lacked that power of appealing to the imagination which has survived Napoleon's death with such astounding vitality that it moves men's minds to-day as surely as it did a hundred years ago, he was shrewd enough to make use of his master's methods when such would seem to serve his purpose. He was not going to creep into Dantzig like a whipped dog into his kennel.

He had procured a horse at Elbing. Between that town and the Mottlau he had halted to form his army into something like order, to get together a staff with which to surround himself.

But the Dantzigers did not cheer. They stood and watched him in a sullen silence as he rode across the bridge now known as the “Milk-Can.” His bridle was twisted round his arm, for all his fingers were frostbitten. His nose and his ears were in the same plight, and had been treated by a Polish barber who, indeed, effected a cure. One eye was almost closed. His face was astonishingly red. But he carried himself like a soldier, and faced the world with the audacity that Napoleon taught to all his disciples.

Behind him rode a few staff officers, but the majority were on foot. Some effort had been made to revive the faded uniforms. One or two heroic souls had cast aside the fur cloaks to which they owed their life, but the majority were broken men without spirit, without pride—appealing only to pity. They hugged themselves closely in their ragged cloaks and stumbled as they walked. It was impossible to distinguish between the officers and the men. The biggest and the strongest were the best clad—the bullies were the best fed. All were black and smoke-grimed—with eyes reddened and inflamed by the dazzling snow through which they stumbled by day, as much as by the smoke into which they crouched at night. Every garment was riddled by the holes burnt by flying sparks—every face was smeared with blood that ran from the horseflesh they had torn asunder with their teeth while it yet smoked.

Some laughed and waved their hands to the crowd. Others, who had known the tragedy of Vilna and Kowno, stumbled on in stubborn silence still doubting that Dantzig stood—that they were at last in sight of food and warmth and rest.

“Is that all?” men asked each other in astonishment. For the last stragglers had crossed the new Mottlau before the head of the procession had reached the Grune Brucke.

“If I had such an army as that,” said a stout Dantziger, “I should bring it into the city quietly, after dusk.”

But the majority were silent, remembering the departure of these men—the triumph, the glory, and the hope. For a great catastrophe is a curtain that for a moment shuts out all history and makes the human family little children again who can but cower and hold each other's hands in the dark.

“Where are the guns?” asked one.

“And the baggage?” suggested another.

“And the treasure of Moscow?” whispered a Jew with cunning eyes, who had hidden behind his neighbour when Rapp glanced in his direction.

Emerging on the bridge, the General glanced at the old Mottlau. A crowd was collected on it. The citizens no longer used the bridges but crossed without fear where they pleased, and heavy sleighs passed up and down as on a high-road. Rapp saw it, made a grimace, and, turning in his saddle, spoke to his neighbour, an engineer officer, who was to make an immortal name and die in Dantzig.

The Mottlau was one of the chief defences of the city, but instead of a river the Governor found a high-road!

Rapp alone seemed to look about him with the air of one who knew his whereabouts. In the straggling trail of men behind him, not one in a hundred looked for a friendly face. Some stared in front of them with lifeless eyes, while others, with a little spirit plucked up at the end of a weary march, glanced up at the gabled houses with the interest called forth by the first sight of a new city.

It was not until long afterwards that the world, piecing together information purposely delayed and details carefully falsified, knew that of the four hundred thousand men who marched triumphantly to the Niemen, only twenty thousand recrossed that river six months later, and of these two-thirds had never seen Moscow.

Rapp, whose bloodshot eyes searched the crowd of faces turned towards him, recognized a number of people. To Mathilde he bowed gravely, and with a kindlier glance turned in his saddle to bow again to Desiree. They hardly heeded him, but with colourless faces turned towards the staff riding behind him.

Most of the faces were strange: others were so altered that the features had to be sought for as in the face of a mummy. Neither Charles nor de Casimir was among the horsemen. One or two of them bowed, as their leader had done, to the two girls.

“That is Captain de Villars,” said Mathilde, “and the other I do not know. Nor that tall man who is bowing now. Who are they?”

Desiree did not answer. None of these men was Charles. Unconsciously holding her two mittened hands at her throat, she searched each face.

They were well placed to see even those who followed on foot. Many of them were not French. It would have been easy to distinguish Charles or de Casimir among the dark-visaged southerners. Desiree was not conscious of the crowd around her. She heard none of the muttered remarks. All her soul was in her eyes.

“Is that all?” she said at length—as the others had said at the entrance to the town.

She found she was standing hand-in-hand with Mathilde, whose face was like marble.

At last, when even the crowd had passed away beneath the Grunes Thor, they turned and walked home in silence.