s blazing
now, and the sky glowed with a red light that mingled with the remnants
of a lurid sunset. A strong wind blew the smoke and the flying sparks
across the roofs.

"Then I went into the sacristy," continued the man, stumbling over the
dead body of a young girl and turning to curse her. Barlasch looked
at him sideways and cursed him for doing it, with a sudden fierce
eloquence. For Papa Barlasch was a man of unclean lips.

"There was an old man in there, a sacristan. I asked him where he kept
the dishes, and he said he could not speak French. I jerked my bayonet
into him--name of a name! he soon spoke French."

Barlasch broke off these delicate confidences by a quick word of
command, and himself stood rigid in the roadway before the Imperial
Palace of the Kremlin, presenting arms. A man passed close by them on
his way towards a waiting carriage. He was stout and heavy-shouldered,
peculiarly square, with a thick neck and head set low in the shoulders.
On the step of the carriage he turned and surveyed the lurid sky and
the burning city to the east with an indifferent air. Into his deep
bloodshot eyes there flashed a sudden gleam of life and power, as he
glanced along the row of watching faces to read what was written there.

It was Napoleon, at the summit of his dream, hurriedly quitting the
Kremlin, the boasted goal of his ambition, after having passed but one
night under that proud roof.

CHAPTER XVI. THE FIRST OF THE EBB.

Tho' he trip and fall
He shall not blind his soul with clay.

The days were short, and November was drawing to its end when Barlasch
returned to Dantzig. Already the frost, holding its own against a sun
that seemed to linger in the North that year, exercised its sway almost
to midday, and drew a mist from the level plains.

The autumn had been one of unprecedented splendour, making the
imaginative whisper that Napoleon, like a second Joshua, could exact
obedience even from the sun. A month earlier, soon after the retreat
was ordered, the nights had begun to be cold, but the days remained
brilliant. Now the rivers were shrouded in white mist, and still water
was frozen.

Barlasch seemed to take it for understood that a billet holds good
throughout a whole campaign. But the door of No. 36 Frauengasse was
locked when he turned its iron handle. He knocked, and waited on the
step.

It was Desiree who opened the door at length--Desiree, grown older, with