Barlasch of the Guard | Page 2

sullen over
Dantzig, the greatest of the Hanseatic towns, the Free City. For a
Dantziger had never needed to say that he was a Pole or a Prussian, a
Swede or a subject of the Czar. He was a Dantziger. Which is
tantamount to having for a postal address a single name that is marked
on the map.
Napoleon had garrisoned the Free City with French troops some years
earlier, to the sullen astonishment of the citizens. And Prussia had not
objected for a very obvious reason. Within the last fourteen months the
garrison had been greatly augmented. The clouds seemed to be
gathering over this prosperous city of the north, where, however, men
continued to eat and drink, to marry and to be given in marriage as in
another city of the plain.
Peter Koch replaced his snuff-stained handkerchief in the pocket of his
rusty cassock and stood aside. He murmured a few conventional words

of blessing, hard on the heels of stronger exhortations to the waiting
children. And Desiree Sebastian came out into the sunlight- -Desiree
Sebastian no more.
That she was destined for the sunlight was clearly written on her face
and in her gay, kind blue eyes. She was tall and straight and slim, as are
English and Polish and Danish girls, and none other in all the world.
But the colouring of her face and hair was more pronounced than in the
fairness of Anglo-Saxon youth. For her hair had a golden tinge in it,
and her skin was of that startlingly milky whiteness which is only
found in those who live round the frozen waters. Her eyes, too, were of
a clearer blue--like the blue of a summer sky over the Baltic sea. The
rosy colour was in her cheeks, her eyes were laughing. This was a bride
who had no misgivings.
On seeing such a happy face returning from the altar the observer might
have concluded that the bride had assuredly attained her desire; that she
had secured a title; that the pre-nuptial settlement had been safely
signed and sealed.
But Desiree had none of these things. It was nearly a hundred years
ago.
Her husband must have whispered some laughing comment on Koch,
or another appeal to her quick sense of the humorous, for she looked
into his changing face and gave a low, girlish laugh of amusement as
they descended the steps together into the brilliant sunlight.
Charles Darragon wore one of the countless uniforms that enlivened the
outward world in the great days of the greatest captain that history has
seen. He was unmistakably French--unmistakably a French gentleman,
as rare in 1812 as he is to-day. To judge from his small head and
clean-cut features, fine and mobile; from his graceful carriage and
slight limbs, this man was one of the many bearing names that begin
with the fourth letter of the alphabet since the Terror only.
He was merely a lieutenant in a regiment of Alsatian recruits; but that
went for nothing in the days of the Empire. Three kings in Europe had

begun no farther up the ladder.
The Frauengasse is a short street, made narrow by the terrace that each
house throws outward from its face, each seeking to gain a few inches
on its neighbour. It runs from the Marienkirche to the Frauenthor, and
remains to-day as it was built three hundred years ago.
Desiree nodded and laughed to the children, who interested her. She
was quite simple and womanly, as some women, it is to be hoped, may
succeed in continuing until the end of time. She was always pleased to
see children; was glad, it seemed, that they should have congregated on
the steps to watch her pass. Charles, with a faint and unconscious reflex
of that grand manner which had brought his father to the guillotine, felt
in his pocket for money, and found none.
He jerked his hand out with widespread fingers, in a gesture indicative
of familiarity with the nakedness of the land.
"I have nothing, little citizens," he said with a mock gravity; "nothing
but my blessing."
And he made a gay gesture with his left hand over their heads, not the
act of benediction, but of peppering, which made them all laugh. The
bride and bridegroom passing on joined in the laughter with hearts as
light and voices scarcely less youthful.
The Frauengasse is intersected by the Pfaffengasse at right angles,
through which narrow and straight street passes much of the traffic
towards the Langenmarkt, the centre of the town. As the little bridal
procession reached the corner of this street, it halted at the approach of
some mounted troops. There was nothing unusual in this sight in the
streets of Dantzig, which were accustomed now to the clatter of the