And I have laboured somewhat in my time
And not been paid profusely.
When Desiree came down the next morning, she found Barlasch talking to
himself and laughing as he prepared his breakfast.
He met her with a gay salutation, and seemed unable to control his
hilarity.
“It is,” he explained, “because to-night we shall be under fire. We
shall be in danger. It makes me afraid, and I laugh. I cannot help it.
When I am afraid, I laugh.”
He bustled about the room, and Desiree saw that he had already opened
his secret store beneath the floor, to take from it such delicacies as
remained.
“You slept?” he asked sharply. “Yes, I can see you did. That is good,
for to-night we shall be awake. And now you must eat.”
For Barlasch was a materialist. He had fought death in one form or
another all his life, and he knew that those who eat and sleep are
better equipped for the battle than those who cherish high ideals or
think great thoughts.
“It is a good thing,” he said, looking at her, “that you are so slim. In
a military coat--if you put on that short dress in which you skate, and
your high boots--you will look like a soldier. It is a good thing that
it is winter, for you can wear the hood of your military coat over
your head, as they all do out in the trenches to keep their ears from
falling. So you need not cut off your hair--all that golden hair. Name
of thunder, that would be a pity, would it not?”
He turned to the fire and stirred his coffee reflectively.
“In my own country,” he said, “a long time ago, there was a girl who had
hair like yours. That is why we are friends, perhaps.”
He gave a queer, short laugh, and took up his sheepskin coat preparatory
to going out.
“I have my preparations to make,” he said, with an air of importance.
“There is much to be thought of. We had not long together, for the
others were watching us. But we understand each other. I go now to give
him the signal that it is for to-night. I have borrowed one of Lisa's
dusters--a blue one that will show against the snow--with which to give
him the signal. And he is watching from Zoppot with his telescope. That
fat Lisa--if I had held up my finger, she would have fallen in love with
me. It has always been so. These women--”
And he went away muttering.
If he had preparations to make, Desiree had no less. She could take but
little with her, and she was quitting the house which had always been
her home so long as she could remember. Those trunks which Barlasch
had so unhesitatingly recognized as coming from France were, it seemed,
destined never to be used again. Mathilde had gone, taking with her
her few simple possessions; for they had always been poor in the
Frauengasse. Sebastian had departed on that journey which the traveller
must face alone, taking naught with him. And it was characteristic of
the man that he had left nothing behind him--no papers, no testament,
no clue to that other life so different from his life in the Frauengasse
that it must have lapsed into a fleeting, intangible memory, such as
the brain is sometimes allowed to retain of a dream dreamt in this
existence, or perhaps in another. Sebastian was gone--with his secret.
Desiree, alone with hers, was left in this quiet house for a few hours
longer. Mechanically she set it in order. What would it matter to-morrow
whether it were set in order or not? Who would come to note the last
touches? She worked with that feverish haste which is responsible for
much unnecessary woman's work in this world--the haste that owes its
existence to the fear of having time to think. Many talk for the same
reason. What a quiet world, if those who have nothing to say said
nothing! But speech or work must fail at last, and lo! the thoughts are
lying in wait.
Desiree's thoughts found their opportunity when she went into the
drawing-room upstairs, where her wedding-breakfast had been set before
the guests only eight months ago. The guests--De Casimir, the Grafin,
Sebastian, Mathilde, Charles!
Desiree stood alone now in the silent room. She did not look at the
table. The guests were all gone. The dead past had buried its dead. She
went to the window and drew aside the curtain as she had drawn it aside
on her wedding-day to look down into the Frauengasse and see Louis
d'Arragon. And again her heart leapt in her breast with that throb
of fear. She turned where she stood, and looked at the door as if she
expected to see Charles come in at it, laughing and gay, explaining (he
was so good at explaining) his encounter in the street, and stepping
aside to allow Louis to come forward. Louis, who looked at no one but
her, and came into the room and into her life.
She had been afraid of him. She was afraid of him still. And her heart
had leapt at the thought that he had been restlessly, sleeplessly
thinking of her, working for her--had been to Vilna and back for her,
and was now waiting for her beyond the barrier of Russian camp-fires.
The dangers which made Barlasch laugh--and she knew they were real
enough, for it was only a real danger that stirred something in the old
soldier's blood to make him gay--these dangers were of no account. She
knew, she had known instantly and for all time when she looked down into
the Frauengasse and saw Louis, that nothing in heaven or earth could
keep them apart.
She stood now, looking at the empty doorway. What was the rest of her
life to be?
Barlasch returned in the afternoon. He was leisurely and inclined to
contemplativeness. It would seem that his preparations having all been
completed, he was left with nothing to do. War is a purifier; it clears
the social atmosphere and puts womanly men and manly women into their
right places. It is also a simplifier; it teaches us to know how little
we really require in daily life, and how many of the environments with
which men and women hamper themselves are superfluous and the fruit of
idleness.
“I have nothing to do,” said Barlasch, “I will cook a careful dinner.
All that I have saved in money I cannot carry away; all that was stored
beneath the floor must be left there. It is often so in war.”
He had told Desiree that they would have to walk twelve miles across
the snow-clad marshes bordering the frozen Vistula, between midnight and
dawn. It needed no telling that they could carry little with them.
“You will have to make a new beginning in life,” he said curtly, “with
the clothes upon your back. How many times have I done it--the Saints
alone know! But take money, if you have it in gold or silver. Mine is
all in copper groschen, and it is too heavy to carry. I have never yet
been anywhere that money was not useful--and name of a dog! I have never
had it.”
So Desiree divided what money she possessed with Barlasch, who added it
carefully up and repeated several times for accuracy the tale of what he
had received. For, like many who do not hesitate to steal, he was very
particular in money matters.
“As for me,” he said, “I shall make a new beginning, too. The Captain
will enable me to get back to France, when I shall go to the Emperor
again. It is no place for one of the Old Guard, here with Rapp. I
am getting old, but he will find something for me to do, that little
Emperor.”
At midnight they set out, quitting the house in the Frauengasse
noiselessly. The street was quiet enough, for half the houses were empty
now. Their footsteps were inaudible on the trodden snow. It was a dark
night and not cold; for the great frosts of this terrible winter were
nearly over.
Barlasch carried his musket and bayonet. He had instructed Desiree to
walk in front of him, should they meet a patrol. But Rapp had no men to
spare for patrolling the town. There was no spirit left in Dantzig; for
typhus and starvation patrolled the narrow streets.
They quitted the town to the north-west, near the Oliva Gate. There was
no guard-house here because Langfuhr was held by the French, and Rapp's
outposts were three miles out on the road to Zoppot.
“I have played this game for fifty years,” said Barlasch, with a low
laugh, when they reached the earthworks, completed, at such enormous
cost of life and strength, by Rapp; “follow me and do as I do. When I
stoop, stoop; when I crawl, crawl; when I run, run.”
For he was a soldier now and nothing else. He stood erect, and looked
round him with the air of a young man--ready, keen, alert. Then he moved
forward with confidence towards the high land which terminates in the
Johannesberg, where the peaceful Dantzigers now repair on a Sunday
afternoon to drink thin beer and admire the view.
Below them on the right hand lay the marshes, a white expanse of snow
with a single dark line drawn across it--the Langfuhr road with its
double border of trees.
Barlasch turned once or twice to make sure that Desiree was following
him; but he added nothing to his brief instructions. When he gained
the summit of the tableland which runs parallel with the coast and the
Langfuhr road, he paused for breath.
“When I crawl, crawl. When I run, run,” he whispered again; and led the
way. He went up the bed of a stream, turning his back to the coast, and
at a certain point stopped and by a gesture of the hand bade Desiree
crouch down and wait till he returned. He came back and signed to her
to quit the bed of the stream and follow him. When she came up to the
tableland, she found that they were quite close to a camp-fire. Through
the low pines she could perceive the dark outline of a house.
“Now run,” whispered Barlasch, leading the way across an open space
which seemed to extend to the line of the horizon. Without looking back,
Desiree ran--her only thought was a sudden surprise that Barlasch could
move so quickly and silently.
When he gained the shelter of some trees, he threw himself down on the
snow, and Desiree coming up to him found him breathlessly holding his
sides and laughing aloud.
“We are through the lines,” he gasped, “name of a dog, I was so
frightened. There they go--pam! pam! Buz.. z.. z..”
And he imitated the singing buzz of the bullets humming through the
trees over their heads. For half a dozen shots were fired, while he was
yet speaking, from behind the camp-fires. There were no more, however,
and presently, having recovered his breath, Barlasch rose.
“Come,” he said, “we have a long walk. En route.”
They made a great circuit in the pine-woods, through which Barlasch led
the way with an unerring skill, and descending towards the plain far
beyond Langfuhr they came out on to a lower tableland, below which the
great marshes of the Vistula stretched in the darkness, slowly merging
at last into the sea.
“Those,” said Barlasch, pausing at the edge of the slope, “those are the
lights of Oliva, where the Russians are. That line of lights straight in
front is the Russian fleet lying off Zoppot, and with them are English
ships. One of them is the little ship of Captain d'Arragon. And he
will take you home with him; for the ship is ordered to England, to
Plymouth--which is across the Channel from my own country. Ah--cristi!
I sometimes want to see my own country again--and my own
people--mademoiselle.”
He went on a few paces and then stopped again, and in the darkness held
up one hand, commanding silence. It was the churches of Dantzig striking
the hour.
“Six o'clock,” he whispered, “it will soon be dawn. Yes--we are half an
hour too early.”
He sat down, and, by a gesture, bade Desiree sit beside him.
“Yes,” he said, “the Captain told me that he is bound for England to
convoy larger ships, and you will sail in one of them. He has a home in
the west of England, and he will take you there--a sister or a mother,
I forget which--some woman. You cannot get on without women--you others.
It is there that you will be happy, as the bon Dieu meant you to be. It
is only in England that no one fears Napoleon. One may have a husband
there and not fear that he will be killed. One may have children and not
tremble for them--and it is that that makes you happy--you women.”
Presently he rose and led the way down the slope. At the foot of it, he
paused, and pointing out a long line of trees, said in a whisper--
“He is there--where there are three taller trees. Between us and those
trees are the French outposts. At dawn the Russians attack the outposts,
and during the attack we have simply to go through it to those trees.
There is no other way--that is the rendezvous. Those three tall trees.
When I give the word, you get up and run to those trees--run without
pausing, without looking round. I will follow. It is you he has come
for--not Barlasch. You think I know nothing. Bah! I know everything. I
have always known it--your poor little secret.”
They lay on the snow crouching in a ditch until a grey line appeared low
down in the Eastern sky and the horizon slowly distinguished itself from
the thin thread of cloud that nearly always awaits the rising of the sun
in Northern latitudes.
A minute later the dark group of trees broke into intermittent flame
and the sharp, short “Hurrah!” of the Cossacks, like an angry bark, came
sweeping across the plain on the morning breeze.
“Not yet,” whispered Barlasch, with a gay chuckle of enjoyment. “Not
yet--not yet. Listen, the bullets are not coming here, but are going
past to the right of us. When you go, keep to the left. Slowly at
first--keep a little breath till the end. Now, up! Mademoiselle, run;
name of thunder, let us run!”
Desiree did not understand which were the French lines and which the
line of Russian attack. But there was a clear way to the three trees
which stood above the rest, and she went towards them. She knew she
could not run so far, so she walked. Then the bullets, instead of
passing to the right, seemed to play round her--like bees in a garden on
a summer day--and she ran until she was tired.
The trees were quite close now, and the sky was light behind them. Then
she saw Louis coming towards her, and she ran into his arms. The sound
of the humming bullets was still in her dazed brain, and she touched him
all over with her gloved hand as she clung to him, as a mother touches
her child when it has fallen, to see whether it be hurt.
“How was I to know?” she whispered breathlessly. “How was I to know that
you were to come into my life?”
The bullets did not matter, it seemed, nor the roar of the firing to the
right of them. Nothing mattered--except that Louis must know that she
had never loved Charles.
He held her and said nothing. And she wanted him to say nothing. Then
she remembered Barlasch, and looked back over her shoulder.
“Where is Barlasch?” she asked, with a sudden sinking at her heart.
“He is coming slowly,” replied Louis. “He came slowly behind you all the
time, so as to draw the fire away from you.”
They turned and waited for Barlasch, who seemed to be going in the wrong
direction with an odd vagueness in his movements. Louis ran towards him
with Desiree at his heels.
“Ca-y-est,” said Barlasch; which cannot be translated, and yet has many
meanings. “Ca-y-est.”
And he sat down slowly on the snow. He sat quite upright and rigid, and
in the cold light of the Baltic dawn they saw the meaning of his words.
One hand was within his fur coat. He drew it out, and concealed it from
Desiree behind his back. He did not seem to see them, but presently he
put out his hand and lightly touched Desiree. Then he turned to
Louis with that confidential drop of the voice with which he always
distinguished his friends from those who were not his friends.
“What is she doing?” he asked. “I cannot see in the dark. Is it
not dark? I thought it was. What is she doing? Saying a prayer?
What--because I have my affair? Hey, mademoiselle. You may leave it to
me. I will get in, I tell you that.”
He put his finger to his nose, and then shook it from side to side with
an air of deep cunning.
“Leave it to me. I shall slip in. Who will stop an old man, who has many
wounds? Not St. Peter, assuredly. Let him try. And if the good God hears
a commotion at the gate, He will only shrug His shoulders. He will say
to St. Peter, 'Let pass; it is only Papa Barlasch!'”
And then there was silence. For Barlasch had gone to his own people.