two hands the galloping of a
horse. "The Russians," he explained confidentially.

"Has there been a battle?" asked Desiree.

And Barlasch answered "Pooh!" not without contempt for the female
understanding.

"Then what is it?" she inquired. "You must remember we are not
soldiers--we do not understand those manoeuvres--ai, ai, like that."

And she copied his gesture beneath his scowling contempt.

"It is Vilna," he said. "That is what it is. Then it will be Smolensk,
and then Moscow. Ah, ah! That little man!"

He turned and took up his haversack.

"And I--I have my route. It is good-bye to the Frauengasse. We have been
friends. I told you we should be. It is good-bye to these ladies--and to
that Lisa. Look at her!"

He pointed with his curved and derisive finger into Lisa's eyes. And in
truth the tears were there. Lisa was in heart and person that which
is comprehensively called motherly. She saw perhaps some pathos in the
sight of this rugged man--worn by travel, bent with hardship and many
wounds, past his work--shouldering his haversack and trudging off to the
war.

"The wave moves on," he said, making a gesture, and a sound illustrating
that watery progress. "And Dantzig will soon be forgotten. You will be
left in peace--but we go on to--" He paused and shrugged his shoulders
while attending to a strap. "India or the devil," he concluded.

"Colonel Casimir has gone," he added in what he took to be an aside to
Mathilde. Which made her wonder for a moment. "I saw him depart with his
staff soon after daybreak. And the Emperor has forgotten Dantzig. It is
safe enough for the patron now. You can write him a letter to tell him
so. Tell him that I said it was safe for him to return quietly here, and
live in the Frauengasse--I, Barlasch."

He was ready now, and, buttoning his tunic, he fixed the straps across
his chest, looking from one to the other of the three women watching
him, not without some appreciation of an audience. Then he turned to
Desiree, who had always been his friend, with whom he now considered
that he had the soldier's bond of a peril passed through together.

"The Emperor has forgotten Dantzig," he repeated, "and those against
whom he had a grudge. But he has also forgotten those who are in prison.
It is not good to be forgotten in prison. Tell the patron that--to put
it in his pipe and smoke it. Some day he may remember an old soldier.
Ah, one thinks of one's self."

And beneath his bushy