Barlasch of the Guard Part 11

"Our duty, Fraulein," he said awkwardly. "We are but obeying orders. A mere formality. It will all be explained, no doubt, if the householder, Antoine Sebastian, will put on his hat and come with us."

"His hat is not there, as you see," answered Desiree. "You must seek him elsewhere."

The man shook his head with a knowing smile. "We must seek him in this house," he said. "We will make it as easy for you as we can, Fraulein--if you make it easy for us."

As he spoke he produced a candle from his pocket, and encouraged the broken wick with his finger-nail.

"It will make it pleasanter for all," said Desiree cheerfully, "if you will accept a candlestick."

The man glanced at her. He was a heavy man, with little suspicious eyes set close together. He seemed to be concluding that she had outwitted him--that Sebastian was not in the house.

"Where are the cellar-stairs?" he asked. "I warn you, Fraulein, it is useless to conceal your father. We shall, of course, find him."

Desiree pointed to the door next to that giving entry to the kitchen. It was bolted and locked. Desiree found the key for them. She not only gave them every facility, but was anxious that they should be as quick as possible. They did not linger in the cellar, which, though vast, was empty; and when they returned, Desiree, who was waiting for them, led the way upstairs.

They were rather abashed by her silence. They would have preferred protestations and argument. Discussion always belittles. The smile recommended by Papa Barlasch, lurking at the corner of her lips, made them feel foolish. She was so slight and young and helpless, that a sort of shame rendered them clumsy.

They felt more at home in the kitchen when they arrived there, and the sight of Lisa, st.u.r.dy and defiant, reminded them of the authority upon which Desiree had somehow cast a mystic contempt.

"There is a door there," said the heavy official, with a brusque return of his early manner. "Come, what is that door?"

"That is a little room."

"Then open it."

"I cannot," returned Lisa. "It is locked."

"Aha!" said the man, with a laugh of much meaning. "On the inside, eh?"

He went to it, and banged on it with his fist.

"Come," he shouted, "open it and be done."

There was a short silence, during which those in the kitchen listened breathlessly. A shuffling sound inside the door made the officer of the law turn and beckon to his two men to come closer.

Then, after some fumbling, as of one in the dark, the door was unlocked and slowly opened.

Papa Barlasch stood in a very primitive night-apparel within the door.

He had not done things by halves, for he was an old campaigner, and knew that a thing half done is better left undone in times of war. He noted the presence of Desiree and Lisa, but was not ashamed. The reason of it was soon apparent. For Papa Barlasch was drunk, and the smell of drink came out of his apartment in a warm wave.

"It is the soldier billeted in the house," explained Lisa, with a half-hysterical laugh.

Then Barlasch harangued them in the language of intoxication. If he had not spared Desiree's feelings, he spared her ears less now; for he was an ignorant man, who had lived through a brutal period in the world's history the roughest life a man can lead. Two of the men held him with difficulty against the wall, while the third hastily searched the room--where, indeed, no one could well be concealed.

Then they quitted the house, followed by the polyglot curses of Barlasch, who was now endeavouring to find his bayonet amidst his chaotic possessions.

CHAPTER IX. THE GOLDEN GUESS.

The golden guess Is morning star to the full round of truth.

Barlasch was never more sober in his life than when he emerged a minute later from his room, while Lisa was still feverishly bolting the door.

He had not wasted much time at his toilet. In his flannel s.h.i.+rt, his arms bare to the elbow, knotted and muscular, he looked like some rude son of toil.

"One thinks of one's self," he hastened to explain to Desiree, fearing that she might ascribe some other motive to his action. "Some day the patron may be in power again, and then he will remember a poor soldier.

It is good to think of the future."

He shook his head pessimistically at Lisa as belonging to a s.e.x liable to error: instanced in this case by bolting the door too eagerly.

"Now," he said, turning to Desiree again, "have you any in Dantzig to help you?"

"Yes," she answered rather slowly.

"Then send for him."

"I cannot do that."

"Then go for him yourself," snapped Barlasch impatiently.

He looked at her fiercely beneath his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows.

"It is no use to be afraid," he said; "you are afraid--I see it in your face. And it is never any use. Before they hammered on that door there, my legs shook. For I am easily afraid--I. But it is never any use. And when one opens the door, it goes."

He looked at her with a puzzled frown, seeking in vain, it may have been, the ordinary symptoms of fear. She was hesitating but not afraid.

There ran blood in her veins which will for all time be a.s.sociated by history with a gay and indomitable courage.

"Come," he said sharply; "there is nothing else to do."

"I will go," said Desiree, at length, deciding suddenly to do the one thing that is left to a woman once or twice in her life--to go to the one man and trust him.

"By the back way," said Barlasch, helping her with the cloak that Lisa had brought, and pulling the hood forward over her face with a jerk.

"Ah, I know that way. The patron is hiding in the yard. An old soldier looks to the retreat--though the Emperor has saved us that, so far.

Come, I will help you over the wall, for the door is rusted."

The way, which Barlasch had perceived, led through the room at the back of the kitchen to a yard, and thence through a door not opened by the present occupiers of the old house, into a very labyrinth of narrow alleys running downward to the river and round the tall houses that stand against the cathedral walls.

The wall was taller than Barlasch, but he ran at it like a cat, and Desiree standing below could see the black outline of his limbs crouching on the top. He stooped down, and grasping her hands, lifted her by the sheer strength of one arm, balanced her for an instant on the wall, and then lowered her on the outer side.

"Run," he whispered.

She knew the way, and although the night was dark, and these narrow alleys between high walls had no lamps, Desiree lost no time. The Krahn-Thor is quite near to the Frauenga.s.se. Indeed, the whole of Dantzig occupied but a small s.p.a.ce between the rivers in those straitened days. The town was quieter than it had been for months, and Desiree pa.s.sed unmolested through the narrow streets. She made her way to the quay, pa.s.sing through the low gateway known as the door of the Holy Ghost, and here found people still astir. For the commerce that thrives on a northern river is paralyzed all the winter, and feverishly active when the ice has gone.

"The Elsa," replied a woman, who had been selling bread all day on the quay, and was now packing up her stall, "you ask for the Elsa. There is such a s.h.i.+p, I know. But how can I say which she is? See, they lie right across the river like a bridge. Besides, it is late, and sailors are rough men."

Desiree hurried on. Louis d'Arragon had said that the s.h.i.+p was lying near to the Krahn-Thor, of which the great hooded roof loomed darkly against the stars above her. She was looking about her when a man came forward with the hesitating step of one who has been told to wait the arrival of some one unknown to him.