He made a wry face and a little clicking noise with
his tongue, such as the women of his race make when
they drop and break some household utensil.
Then he went back towards the bed. Hitherto he
had always observed a certain ceremoniousness of manner
in the sick chamber. He laid this aside this
evening, and sat down on a chair that stood near.
Thus they remained in a silence which seemed to increase
with the darkness. At length the stillness became
so marked that Barlasch slowly turned his head towards
the bed. The same instinct had come to Desiree
at the same moment.
They both rose and groped their way towards Sebastian.
Desiree found the flint and struck it. The
sulphur burnt blue for interminable moments, and then
flared to meet the wick of the candle. Barlasch
watched Desiree as she held the light down to her
father’s face. Sebastian’s waiting
was over. Barlasch had not needed a candle to
recognize death.
From Desiree his bright and restless eyes turned slowly
towards the dead man’s face—and he
stepped back.
“Ah!” he said, with a hoarse cry of surprise,
“now I remember. I was always sure that
I had seen his face before. And when I saw it
it was like that—like the face of a dead
man. It was on the Place de la Nation, on a
tumbrel—going to the guillotine. He
must have escaped, as many did, by some accident or
mistake.”
He went slowly to the window, holding his shaggy head
between his two clenched hands as if to spur his memory
to an effort. Then he turned and pointed to
the silent form on the bed.
“That is a noble of France,” he said;
“one of the greatest. And all France thinks
him dead this twenty years. And I cannot remember
his name—goodness of God—I cannot
remember his name!”
It
is our trust
That there is yet another
world to mend
All error and mischance.
Louis d’Arragon knew the road well enough from
Konigsberg to the Niemen. It runs across a plain,
flat as a table, through which many small streams
seek their rivers in winding beds. This country
was not thinly inhabited, though the villages had
been stripped, as foliage is stripped by a cloud of
locusts. Each cottage had its ring of silver
birch-trees to protect it from the winds which sweep
from the Baltic and the steppe. These had been
torn and broken down by the retreating army, in a
vain hope of making fire with green wood.
It was quite easy to keep in the steps of the retreating
army, for the road was marked by recumbent forms huddled
on either side. Few vehicles had come so far,
for the broken country near to Vilna and around Kowno
had presented slopes up which the starving horses were
unable to drag their load.
D’Arragon reached Kowno without mishap, and
there found a Russian colonel of Cossacks who proved
friendly enough, and not only appreciated the value
of his passport and such letters of recommendation
as he had been able to procure at Konigsberg, but
gave him others, and forwarded him on his journey.
