Part 35 (1/2)

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 ill.u.s.tration.

”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 ill.u.s.trate 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.”