WHAT HAPPENED TO HANS
When Hans left Memel he went at once to the house where he had stayed
the night with Bettina. The woman who had cleaned the dress was standing
in the doorway.
"It's a cold day," she said in French to a man who had paused with a
bundle to ask her a question.
Hans started.
"Ach Himmel," he said, for the look of her face, the way she pronounced
her words told the old man that she was no Prussian.
He turned in at the next house and begged a lodging.
The woman took him very willingly.
"Money is scarce," she said, "and my man will be glad to have me help a
little."
She was a large, honest-faced woman, not clever looking, but one Hans
felt safe to talk with.
Ja, ja, her neighbour was French. She and her husband had come there a
month after Jena. He pretended to be a peddler who was prevented from
travel by the war.
"We do not believe a word of it," said the woman, lowering her voice.
"Too many strangers come there who do not speak honest German. My man,"
she shrugged her shoulders, "has his own opinion of what they are here
for."
Hans looked at her inquiringly and waited.
"It's Napoleon," said the woman, and she brought Hans his black bread
and cheese.
The old man reflected as he drank.
He remembered that a little fellow who looked foreign had sent him to
the house that day when they had entered the village with the Queen's
party. He knew that all along his way the French had been warned against
a messenger bearing a secret letter about the Secretary Lombard, who
was suspected of treachery and dealings with the French. There were
other matters in the letter, matters the King should have knowledge of,
but how to get possession of it again the old man had no idea.
"I shall watch here, however," he concluded. "I may find out things just
as useful as the letter."
For three days nothing happened.
On the night of the fourth he could not sleep because of the rattling of
his window.
Rising to stop it with paper he was astonished to see a long ray of
light across the snow in the garden.
"Himmel," said Hans, "it comes from next door. It must be after
midnight. She has visitors."
He threw on his clothes and crept to the garden.
Ja, he was right. The light came from the kitchen of the next house.
"I shall wait," said Hans, "and see what happens."
It was bitterly cold. The wind cut like a knife, the trees and bushes
cracked their icy dress; but Hans had a fur cap, and he drew it well
over his ears.
He had been in the cold for a half hour when a sound made him start.
It was the creaking of the kitchen door of the next house. The light
vanished, and with careful steps a dark figure moved across the snow.
Hans nodded.
"You go, I follow," he thought.
He was a spy himself. The man in the snow, he knew, was another.
The man left the garden. Hans left his.
On he went through the snow, Hans always a good pace behind him,
stopping if he stopped, running if he ran, and, two men moving as one,
they came to the open country.
Pausing, the man gave a low call.
It was answered with cautious care.
Then a sleigh with high runners and a driver in a fur cap glided from
the distant darkness. A figure, not the driver, leaned from the fur
rugs.
"You have it?" was asked in French.
"Yes," said the man; "the woman told the truth. It is the one we are in
search of."
The man in the sleigh uttered a sound as of congratulation.
"Lombard, you mean?"
"Yes, yes. The woman has had it three days. Here."
Something white was held in the air--his letter. Hans recognised it.
The man moved to spring into the sleigh, but a quick hand caught him, a
foot tripped him up, and snow flew everywhere as two bodies rolled in
the whiteness.
It was all over in a second.
Paper flew on the wind, torn fiercely in pieces, and then Hans found
himself bound fast with handkerchiefs and woollen scarfs, flat in the
bottom of the sleigh, four feet upon him.
What matter?
He had seized the letter in the scuffle and only the swift wind of the
Baltic knew where were the pieces.
The Prussian King would never know if Lombard were guilty, but the
French would not possess a drawing of certain frontier fortresses.
The Frenchmen were furious. They vowed Hans should be shot that night
like a dog.
The driver brought them a piece or two of the letter, but one was half
blank and the other was the address to His Majesty.
"Dantzic!" ordered the man, when the driver declared further search was
useless.
Then off they dashed.
After some talk in low tones they changed their direction, but to what
place they decided to go Hans could not discover.
One of the men addressed him in French.
"For safety's sake," he muttered to his neighbour.
Hans feigned ignorance.
"I do not understand, monsieur," he said stupidly, in German.
With relief the two raised their voices and talked steadily as they flew
over the snow.
Dantzic must fall. It grew daily weaker.
"The Emperor," said one, "will wipe Prussia out of existence."
Then he told how it was believed that Napoleon meant to make a new
kingdom.
"His brother, Jerome, has nothing yet," he said, and he laughed at the
Prussians and called them pigs and cowards, and made jokes about the
generals, and said things that Napoleon had invented about the Queen.
It was hard for Hans to lie still and say nothing, but the first thing
in life is to know when to hold one's tongue, and Hans knew it was
useful to listen.
Early in the morning they came to a town, through whose gate they
entered. The sleigh drew up before a great building. A French soldier
came quickly to greet the travellers, one of whom sprang out and entered
the house with him.
"Coffee," ordered the other. "We are freezing."
In a few moments several soldiers appeared. They ordered Hans from the
sleigh; handcuffs were locked on his wrists, and he was marched away,
the second traveller and driver following.
Hans asked the soldier near him in what town he was.
The man laughed mockingly.
"Where you are," said he in bad German, "is none of your business, old
man. What you are, you and I know."
He thrust out his under lip and shrugged his shoulders.
"Old man, what you are I can tell you--a spy of the King of Prussia and
a prisoner of the Emperor Napoleon!"
Then he held up his hands to imitate a gun, and half closing his eye
pretended to take aim at the prisoner.
"To-morrow? Next day? Who knows?" and he led Hans to a cold bare room,
when, locking the door, he left him.
"What matter?" muttered Hans. "I am old, and the French will never read
the letter."
Very likely he would be shot, and soon. In Magdeburg they had shot down
Prussians by dozens. The day he had stopped at the farmhouse he had
heard how they had chained a father and son together, marched them
through the town and shot them.
"It is war," said Hans; "I took my chances. The good Mademoiselle Clara
will take good care of my Bettina."
The next day came, and the next; a week passed and nothing happened.
The truth was, the victory at Eylau was uncertain. Napoleon was checked
and all things were waiting. There was hope of peace, and an order came
to march all prisoners to another city.
It was the good God, Hans believed, who directed his eye to a field as
he was marched to his new prison, a castle the French then were using.
The field itself was white and crusted with snow, but Hans' eye noted a
large spot where the whiteness had been melted and then had frozen, as
if water had flowed upon it. It was near spring now and there were
thaws, then more snow, and then fresh melting and freezing.
The spot Hans noticed had nothing to do with this. It was as if a large
stream of water had a habit of pouring out there. Yes, he was right, for
he saw that the snow was broken and frozen towards a ditch on the
boundary of the field.
"It must be a sewer," said Hans, and thought no more about it.
Life in the castle was easy and pleasant. The place was so strong there
was no danger of escape, so the commander, being easy-going, permitted
the prisoners much liberty, allowing them to walk about for air in the
paved courtyard.
Hans enjoyed this, being used to the air and freedom of his Thuringian
forest.
His room in the castle had a window, and that also made him happy. One
day, gazing out, he discovered that the field he had noticed lay quite
near the wall of his prison.
"Ach Himmel!" cried Hans, with a start. "It is the sewer pipe of this
castle!"
A thought struck him. He was old, yes, and he had said he did not mind
dying; but his heart beat wildly at the thought of escaping from certain
death by shooting. Day after day he thought on the sewer. Where was the
exit, he wondered, from the castle! He would find it, yes, if it were
possible.
To get air he went to the courtyard. New prisoners had arrived in the
night. They, too, were walking.
"Ach Himmel! God be praised!" cried Hans, for he came face to face with
the Herr Lieutenant.
But what a change!
He was thin, gaunt, and pale, and his face and figure looked wretched
and hopeless.
"Hans Lange!" he cried, and then there was much to talk of.
To his ear Hans confided the idea of the sewer, and hope at once began
to change the expression of the prisoner.
After the great victory of Friedland there was a truce to discuss peace,
so Hans still remained a prisoner; and one day he was ordered to work in
the garden of the castle.
"Food is scarce, prisoners are many and idle. We may have some
vegetables; why not?" asked the commandant.
"The good God again," thought Hans, for he had his own idea about that
sewer. The garden must be drained. The pipe, certainly, must do the
labour, and, the good God helping him, he might again see his Bettina.
And one day in the garden he came upon the iron lid of a manhole,
overgrown with grass and very rusty.
"The sewer!" thought Hans, with joy. "It is big enough for a man to slip
through."
He bent over. He pulled on the bars. Then he glanced up to see if he
were observed. The eye of a sentinel seemed on him, so, seizing a weed,
he pulled hard, tugged, and then rising with the thing in his hand,
flung it aside. Satisfied, the sentinel showed no more curiosity.
Again and again he tried to loosen the lid, but no effort could move it;
but though he went about his work, he returned now and then to his
prize, and suddenly, while he was in a different part of the garden, an
idea struck him. The bar on which the lid was swung was eaten with rust.
Could he break it, the lid could be lifted at will.
He returned and examined closely. Yes, he was right; the rust was of
ages. Lifting his spade, he pressed with all his might. God be praised!
It was easier than he had thought. More pressure and it broke like wood.
The other side was more difficult and it occupied days, but at last it
was free.
"Now the Herr Lieutenant!" thought Hans in glee.
"The thing for me," cried Franz, his face alight with new hope, "is to
feign illness, entreat for some labour and beg to be allowed to help in
the garden."
Hans did not believe this would be possible.
"You, an officer!" he said, and shook his old head.
"I can try," said Franz, and presented himself before the proper person.
"Inaction is killing me," he announced. And, indeed, he looked most
dreadful, pale, bloodless, and a ghost of the brave young officer of
Jena.
The French were always good-natured with the German prisoners until the
time came to shoot them, and that, after all, was Napoleon's affair, not
theirs, and so the Herr Lieutenant was permitted to dig.
"A strange occupation for an officer," and the commandant shrugged his
shoulders. But the Germans, at best, he thought, were only pigs, so if
this one wanted to root, let him. The walls of the castle were high.
Escape was impossible.
"Now," said Hans, "now, may the good God help us with the rest!"
"Amen," said the Herr Lieutenant.
And it seemed that He did, for on the second day of Franz's digging a
quick, pelting June rain hid them entirely from the view of the castle.
The rain came down in sheets; all were safe in the castle, not a soul
could see them. The rain changed suddenly into hail. All the better, and
the good God be thanked!
"Now," cried Hans; "now or never!"
He jerked the lid off the hole.
Down went the Herr Lieutenant, his feet landing in the sewer, his head
still in view.
"Good," he said, "good! There is space enough below."
Then down he went, and Hans saw him no more.
The old man had kept for himself the hard task. He must cover the drain
after him with the lid. Down he went, holding the cover in his hand
above him, for the drain was too narrow for him to lift his arm once in.
"Ach Himmel," he thought, "the rain is ceasing."
Then he lowered the lid, balanced on his palm, and as he struggled into
the sewer proper it fell into its place with a crash.
"Ach Himmel," said the old soldier, for he was sure the noise would tell
the story. But he pushed forward eagerly.
Only the thought of liberty could make such an awful journey possible.
The Herr Lieutenant, being ahead, kept out the air from one end, and
water came pouring in at the other. But fortunately the way was short,
and the Herr Lieutenant was soon in the field, and the water coming
suddenly with a rush bore Hans like a straw, landing him almost drowned
in the ditch near the Herr Lieutenant.
For a few moments he could not breathe, but the voice of the Herr
Lieutenant recalled him.
"Come," said the young man, "come!"
"Ja, ja," and off they started.
For an hour they crawled in the ditch, which seemed to be interminable.
Once or twice they heard guns, but who shot them they had no idea, and
then presently the ditch ended.
"Come; we are safe now," said the Herr Lieutenant, and he raised himself
up from the bushes, Hans following his example.
"Gott im Himmel!" he cried.
On the road before them came soldiers in French uniform.
"Back!" cried the old man, "back; lie flat, or they will see you!"