's friends seemed to have deserted him. Perhaps it was not
discreet to be seen in the company of one who had come under Napoleon's
displeasure. Some had quitted the city after hurriedly concealing their
valuables in their gardens, behind the chimneys, beneath the floors,
where it is to be supposed they still lie hidden. Others were among the
weekly thousand or twelve hundred who were carted out by the Oliva Gate
to be thrown into huge trenches, while the waiting Russians watched from
their lines on the heights of Langfuhr.

It was true that news continued to filter in, and never quite ceased,
all through the terrible twelve months that were to follow. More
especially did news that was unfavourable to the French find its way
into the beleaguered city. But it was not authentic news, and Sebastian
gathered little comfort from the fact--not unknown to the whispering
citizens--that Rapp himself had heard nothing from the outer world since
the Elbing mail-cart had been turned back by the first of the Cossacks
on the night of the seventh of January.

Perhaps Sebastian had that most fatal of maladies--to which nearly all
men come at last--weariness of life.

"Why don't you fortify yourself, and laugh at fortune?" asked Barlasch,
twenty years his senior, as he stood sturdily on his stocking-feet at
the sick man's bedside.

"I take what my daughter gives me," protested Sebastian, half peevishly.

"But that does not suffice," answered the materialist. "It does not
suffice to swallow evil fortune--one must digest it."

Sebastian made no answer. He was a quiet patient, and lay all day with
wide-open, dreaming eyes. He seemed to be waiting for something. This,
indeed, was his mental attitude as presented to his neighbours, and
perhaps to the few friends he possessed in Dantzig. He had waited
through the years during which Desiree had grown to womanhood. He waited
on doggedly through the first month of the siege, without enthusiasm,
without comment--without hope, perhaps. He seemed to be waiting now to
get better.

"He has made little or no progress," said the doctor, who could only
give a passing glance at his patients, for he was working day and night.
He had not time to beat about the bush, as his kind heart would have
liked, for he had known Desiree all her life.

It was Shrove Tuesday, and the streets were full of revellers. The
Neapolitans and other Southerners had made great preparations for the
carnival, and the Gover