Part 6 (2/2)

”Thank you, Lisa, thank you,” said Sebastian in German, without looking round. By accident Barlasch had performed one of Lisa's duties, and the master of the house was too deeply engaged in thought to notice any difference in the handling or to perceive the smell of snuff that heralded the approach of Papa Barlasch. Sebastian took his hat and went out closing the door behind him, and leaving Barlasch, who had followed him to the door, standing rather stupidly on the mat.

”Absent-minded--the citizen,” muttered Barlasch, returning to the kitchen, where he resumed his seat on a chair by the open door. He scratched his head and appeared to lapse into thought. But his brain was slow as were his movements. He had been drinking to the health of the bride. He thumped himself on the brow with his closed fist.

”Sacred-name-of-a-thunderstorm,” he said. ”Where have I seen that face before?”

Sebastian went out by the Frauenthor to the quay. Although it was dusk, the granaries were still at work. The river was full of craft and the roadway choked by rows and rows of carts, all of one pattern, too big and too heavy for roads that are laid across a marsh.

He turned to the right, but found his way blocked at the corner of the Langenmarkt, where the road narrows to pa.s.s under the Grunes Thor. Here the idlers of the evening hour were collected in a crowd, peering over each other's shoulders towards the roadway and the bridge. Sebastian was a tall man, and had no need to stand on tip-toe in order to see the straight rows of bayonets swinging past, and the line of shakos rising and falling in unison with the beat of a thousand feet on the hollow woodwork of the drawbridge.

The troops had been pa.s.sing out of the city all the afternoon on the road to Elbing and Konigsberg.

”It is the same,” said a man standing near to Sebastian, ”at the Hohes Thor, where they are marching out by the road leading to Konigsberg by way of Dessau.”

”It is farther than Konigsberg that they are going,” was the significant answer of a white-haired veteran who had probably been at Eylau, for he had a crushed look.

”But war is not declared,” said the first speaker.

”Does that matter?”

And both turned towards Sebastian with the challenging air that invites opinion or calls for admiration of uncommon shrewdness. He was better clad than they. He must know more than they did. But Sebastian looked over their heads and did not seem to have heard their conversation.

He turned back and went another way, by side streets and the little narrow alleys that nearly always encircle a cathedral, and are still to be found on all sides of the Marienkirche. At last he came to the Portchaisenga.s.se, which was quiet enough in the twilight, though he could hear the tramp of soldiers along the Langga.s.se and the rumble of the guns.

There were only two lamps in the Portchaisenga.s.se, swinging on wrought-iron gibbets at each end of the street. These were not yet alight, though the day was fading fast, and the western light could scarcely find its way between the high gables which hung over the road and seemed to lean confidentially towards each other.

Sebastian was going towards the door of the Weissen Ross'l when some one came out of the hostelry, as if he had been awaiting him within the porch.

The new-comer, who was a fat man with baggy cheeks and odd, light blue eyes--the eyes of an enthusiast, one would say--pa.s.sed Sebastian, making a little gesture which at once recommended silence, and bade him turn and follow. At the entrance to a little alley leading down towards the Marienkirche the fat man awaited Sebastian, whose pace had not quickened, nor had his walk lost any of its dignity.

”Not there to-night,” said the man, holding up a thick forefinger and shaking it sideways.

”Then where?”

”Nowhere to-night,” was the answer. ”He has come--you know that?”

”Yes,” answered Sebastian slowly, ”for I saw him.”

”He is at supper now with Rapp and the others. The town is full of his people. His spies are everywhere. There are two in the Weissen Ross'l who pretend to be Bavarians. See! There is another--just there.”

He pointed the thick forefinger down the Portchaisenga.s.se where it widens to meet the Langga.s.se, where the last remains of daylight, reflected to and fro between the houses, found freer play than in the narrow alley where they stood.

Sebastian looked in the direction indicated. An officer was walking away from them. A quick observer would have noticed that his spurs made no noise, and that he carried his sword instead of allowing it to clatter after him. It was not clear whence he had come. It must have been from a doorway nearly opposite to the Weissen Ross'l.

”I know that man,” said Sebastian.

”So do I,” was the reply. ”It is Colonel de Casimir.”

With a little nod the fat man went out again into the Portchaisenga.s.se in the direction of the inn, as if he were keeping watch there.

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