Barlasch of the Guard Part 25

But it was not Barlasch. It was a woman who staggered past under a burden of firewood which she had collected in the woods of Schottland, and did not dare to carry through the streets by day.

At last the clocks struck six, and, soon after, Lisa's heavy footstep made the stairs creak and crack.

Desiree went downstairs before daylight. She could hear Mathilde astir in her room, and the light of candles was visible under her door.

Desiree busied herself with household affairs.

"I have not slept," said Lisa bluntly, "for thinking that your husband might return, and fearing that we should make him wait in the street.

But without doubt you would have heard him."

"Yes, I should have heard him."

"If it had been my husband, I should have been at the window all night,"

said Lisa, with a gay laugh--and Desiree laughed too.

Mathilde seemed a long time in coming, and when at length she appeared Desiree could scarcely repress a movement of surprise. Mathilde was dressed, all in her best, as for a fete.

At breakfast Lisa brought the news told to her at the door that the Governor would re-enter the city in state with his staff at midday. The citizens were invited to decorate their streets, and to gather there to welcome the returning garrison.

"And the citizens will accept the invitation," commented Sebastian, with a curt laugh. "All the world has sneered at Russia since the Empire existed--and yet it has to learn from Moscow what part a citizen may play in war. These good Dantzigers will accept the invitation."

And he was right. For one reason or another the city did honour to Rapp.

Even the Poles must have known by now that France had made tools of them. But as yet they could not realize that Napoleon had fallen. There were doubtless many spies in the streets that cold December day--one who listened for Napoleon; and another, peeping to this side and that, for the King of Prussia. Sweden also would need to know what Dantzig thought, and Russia must not be ignorant of the gossip in a great Baltic port.

Enveloped in their stiff sheepskins, concealed by the high collars which reached to the brim of their hats--showing nothing but eyes where the rime made old faces and young all alike, it was difficult for any to judge of his neighbour--whether he were Pole or Prussian, Dantziger or Swede. The women in thick shawls, with hoods or scarves concealing their faces, stood silently beside their husbands. It was only the children who asked a thousand questions, and got never an answer from the cautious descendants of a Hanseatic people.

"Is it the French or the Russians that are coming?" asked a child near to Desiree.

"Both," was the answer.

"But which will come first?"

"Wait and see--silentium," replied the careful Dantziger, looking over his shoulder.

Desiree had changed her clothes, and wore beneath her furs the dress that had been prepared for the journey to Zoppot so long ago. Mathilde had noticed the dress, which had not been seen for six months. Lisa, more loquacious, nodded to it as to a friend when helping Desiree with her furs.

"You have changed," she said, "since you last wore it."

"I have grown older--and fatter," answered Desiree cheerfully.

And Lisa, who had no imagination, seemed satisfied with the explanation.

But the change was in Desiree's eyes.

With Sebastian's permission--almost at his suggestion--they had selected the Grune Brucke as the point from which to see the sight. This bridge spans the Mottlau at the entrance to the Langenmarkt, and the roadway widens before it narrows again to pa.s.s beneath the Grunes Thor. There is rising ground where the road spreads like a fan, and here they could see and be seen.

"Let us hope," said Sebastian, "that two of these gentlemen may perceive you as they pa.s.s."

But he did not offer to accompany them.

By half-past eleven the streets were full. The citizens knew their governor, it seemed. He would not keep them waiting. Although Rapp lacked that power of appealing to the imagination which has survived Napoleon's death with such astounding vitality that it moves men's minds to-day as surely as it did a hundred years ago, he was shrewd enough to make use of his master's methods when such would seem to serve his purpose. He was not going to creep into Dantzig like a whipped dog into his kennel.

He had procured a horse at Elbing. Between that town and the Mottlau he had halted to form his army into something like order, to get together a staff with which to surround himself.

But the Dantzigers did not cheer. They stood and watched him in a sullen silence as he rode across the bridge now known as the "Milk-Can." His bridle was twisted round his arm, for all his fingers were frostbitten.

His nose and his ears were in the same plight, and had been treated by a Polish barber who, indeed, effected a cure. One eye was almost closed.

His face was astonishingly red. But he carried himself like a soldier, and faced the world with the audacity that Napoleon taught to all his disciples.

Behind him rode a few staff officers, but the majority were on foot.

Some effort had been made to revive the faded uniforms. One or two heroic souls had cast aside the fur cloaks to which they owed their life, but the majority were broken men without spirit, without pride--appealing only to pity. They hugged themselves closely in their ragged cloaks and stumbled as they walked. It was impossible to distinguish between the officers and the men. The biggest and the strongest were the best clad--the bullies were the best fed. All were black and smoke-grimed--with eyes reddened and inflamed by the dazzling snow through which they stumbled by day, as much as by the smoke into which they crouched at night. Every garment was riddled by the holes burnt by flying sparks--every face was smeared with blood that ran from the horseflesh they had torn asunder with their teeth while it yet smoked.

Some laughed and waved their hands to the crowd. Others, who had known the tragedy of Vilna and Kowno, stumbled on in stubborn silence still doubting that Dantzig stood--that they were at last in sight of food and warmth and rest.

"Is that all?" men asked each other in astonishment. For the last stragglers had crossed the new Mottlau before the head of the procession had reached the Grune Brucke.

"If I had such an army as that," said a stout Dantziger, "I should bring it into the city quietly, after dusk."

But the majority were silent, remembering the departure of these men--the triumph, the glory, and the hope. For a great catastrophe is a curtain that for a moment shuts out all history and makes the human family little children again who can but cower and hold each other's hands in the dark.

"Where are the guns?" asked one.

"And the baggage?" suggested another.

"And the treasure of Moscow?" whispered a Jew with cunning eyes, who had hidden behind his neighbour when Rapp glanced in his direction.

Emerging on the bridge, the General glanced at the old Mottlau. A crowd was collected on it. The citizens no longer used the bridges but crossed without fear where they pleased, and heavy sleighs pa.s.sed up and down as on a high-road. Rapp saw it, made a grimace, and, turning in his saddle, spoke to his neighbour, an engineer officer, who was to make an immortal name and die in Dantzig.

The Mottlau was one of the chief defences of the city, but instead of a river the Governor found a high-road!

Rapp alone seemed to look about him with the air of one who knew his whereabouts. In the straggling trail of men behind him, not one in a hundred looked for a friendly face. Some stared in front of them with lifeless eyes, while others, with a little spirit plucked up at the end of a weary march, glanced up at the gabled houses with the interest called forth by the first sight of a new city.

It was not until long afterwards that the world, piecing together information purposely delayed and details carefully falsified, knew that of the four hundred thousand men who marched triumphantly to the Niemen, only twenty thousand recrossed that river six months later, and of these two-thirds had never seen Moscow.

Rapp, whose bloodshot eyes searched the crowd of faces turned towards him, recognized a number of people. To Mathilde he bowed gravely, and with a kindlier glance turned in his saddle to bow again to Desiree.

They hardly heeded him, but with colourless faces turned towards the staff riding behind him.

Most of the faces were strange: others were so altered that the features had to be sought for as in the face of a mummy. Neither Charles nor de Casimir was among the hors.e.m.e.n. One or two of them bowed, as their leader had done, to the two girls.

"That is Captain de Villars," said Mathilde, "and the other I do not know. Nor that tall man who is bowing now. Who are they?"

Desiree did not answer. None of these men was Charles. Unconsciously holding her two mittened hands at her throat, she searched each face.

They were well placed to see even those who followed on foot. Many of them were not French. It would have been easy to distinguish Charles or de Casimir among the dark-visaged southerners. Desiree was not conscious of the crowd around her. She heard none of the muttered remarks. All her soul was in her eyes.

"Is that all?" she said at length--as the others had said at the entrance to the town.

She found she was standing hand-in-hand with Mathilde, whose face was like marble.

At last, when even the crowd had pa.s.sed away beneath the Grunes Thor, they turned and walked home in silence.