Part 15 (1/2)

”The wave moves on,” he said, making a gesture, and a sound ill.u.s.trating that watery progress. ”And Dantzig will soon be forgotten. You will be left in peace--but we go on to--” He paused and shrugged his shoulders while attending to a strap. ”India or the devil,” he concluded.

”Colonel Casimir has gone,” he added in what he took to be an aside to Mathilde. Which made her wonder for a moment. ”I saw him depart with his staff soon after daybreak. And the Emperor has forgotten Dantzig. It is safe enough for the patron now. You can write him a letter to tell him so. Tell him that I said it was safe for him to return quietly here, and live in the Frauenga.s.se--I, Barlasch.”

He was ready now, and, b.u.t.toning his tunic, he fixed the straps across his chest, looking from one to the other of the three women watching him, not without some appreciation of an audience. Then he turned to Desiree, who had always been his friend, with whom he now considered that he had the soldier's bond of a peril pa.s.sed through together.

”The Emperor has forgotten Dantzig,” he repeated, ”and those against whom he had a grudge. But he has also forgotten those who are in prison.

It is not good to be forgotten in prison. Tell the patron that--to put it in his pipe and smoke it. Some day he may remember an old soldier.

Ah, one thinks of one's self.”

And beneath his bushy brows he looked at her with a gleam of cunning.

He went to the door and, turning there, pointed the finger of scorn at Lisa, stout and tearful. He gave a short laugh of a low-born contempt, and departed without further parley.

On the doorstep he paused to put on his boots and b.u.t.ton his gaiters, stooping clumsily with a groan beneath his burden of haversack and kit.

Desiree, who had had time to go upstairs to her bedroom, ran after him as he descended the steps. She had her purse in her hand, and she thrust it into his, quickly and breathlessly.

”If you take it,” she said, ”I shall know that we are friends.”

He took it ungraciously enough. It was a silken thing with two small rings to keep the money in place, and he looked at it with a grimace, weighing it in his hand. It was very light.

”Money,” he said. ”No, thank you. To get drink with, and be degraded and sent to prison. Not for me, madame. No, thank you. One thinks of one's career.”

And with a gruff laugh of worldly wisdom he continued his way down the worn steps, never looking back at her as she stood in the sunlight watching him, with the purse in her hand.

So in his old age Papa Barlasch was borne forward to the war on that human tide which flooded all Lithuania, and never ebbed again, but sank into the barren ground, and was no more seen.

As the slow autumn approached, it became apparent that Dantzig no longer interested the watchers. Vilna became the base of operations. Smolensk fell, and, most wonderful of all, the Russians were retiring on Moscow.

Dantzig was no longer on the route. For a time it was of the world forgotten, while, as Barlasch had predicted, free men continued at liberty, though their names had an evil savour, while innocent persons in prison were left to rot there.

Desiree continued to receive letters from her husband, full of love and war. For a long time he lingered at Konigsberg, hoping every day to be sent forward. Then he followed Murat across the Niemen, and wrote of weary journeys over the rolling plains of Lithuania.

Towards the end of July he mentioned curtly the arrival of de Casimir at head-quarters.

”With him came a courier,” wrote Charles, ”bringing your dead letter. I don't believe you love me as I love you. At all events, you do not seem to tell me that you do so often as I want to tell you. Tell me what you do and think every moment of the day....” And so on. Charles seemed to write as easily as he talked, and had no difficulty in setting forth his feelings. ”The courier is in the saddle,” he concluded. ”De Casimir tells me that I must finish. Write and tell me everything. How is Mathilde? And your father? Is he in good health? How does he pa.s.s his day? Does he still go out in the evening to his cafe?”

This seemed to be an afterthought, suggested perhaps by conversation pa.s.sing in the room in which he sat.

The other exile, writing from Stockholm, was briefer in his communications.

”I am well,” wrote Antoine Sebastian, ”and hope to arrive soon after you receive this. Felix Meyer, the notary, has instructions to furnish you with money for household expenses.”

It would appear that Sebastian possessed other friends in Dantzig, who had kept him advised of all that pa.s.sed in the city.

For neither Mathilde nor Desiree had obeyed Barlasch's blunt order to write to their father. They did not know whither he had fled, neither had they received any communication giving an address or a hint as to his future movements. It would appear that the same direct and laconic mind which had carried out his escape deemed it wiser that those left behind should be in no position to furnish information.

In fairness to Barlasch, Desiree had made little of that soldier's part in Sebastian's evasion, and Mathilde displayed small interest in such details. She rather fastened, however, upon the a.s.sistance rendered by Louis d'Arragon.

”Why did he do it?” she asked.