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Updated: June 24, 2025
He had caught a glimpse of her face as she passed. It was hard and set, quite colourless, with bright, sleepless eyes. D'Arragon was a sailor. He had seen that look in rougher faces and sterner eyes, and knew what it meant. "No details?" asked Mathilde in a muffled voice, without looking round. "No," answered Desiree, who had noticed nothing.
"The Captain Louis d'Arragon." "And you have spoken to him to-day here, in Dantzig?" Barlasch nodded his head. "Was he well?" asked Desiree, with a spontaneous anxiety that made Barlasch turn slowly and look at her from beneath his great brows. "Oh, he was well enough," he answered, "he is made of steel, that gentleman. He was well enough, and he has the courage of the devil.
She had been afraid of Louis d'Arragon when she first caught sight of him in the Frauengasse. The fear of him was with her now, and would not depart until he himself swept it away by the first word he spoke. He came out from beneath the trees, made a few steps forward, and then stopped. Again Desiree lingered, and Barlasch, who was naturally impatient, turned and took her by the arm.
He followed me, and learnt much that he was not meant to know. I have since heard it from others. He did the Emperor a great service that man. He saved his life, I think, from assassination in Dantzig. And he did me an ill turn but it was my own carelessness. I thought to make a thaler by lodging him, and he was tricking me all the while." "What was his name?" asked D'Arragon.
He led the way through his own room, which was dark, save for a shaft of lamp-light coming from the kitchen. He looked back keenly at Louis d'Arragon. "Salut!" he growled, scowling at his boots. "A sailor," he muttered after a pause. "Good. She has her wits at the top of the basket that child." Desiree was throwing back her hood and looking at her father with a reassuring smile.
"With a mere word, added in postscriptum, to say that he was unhurt at the end of the day," suggested Sebastian, already drawing forward a chair with a gesture full of hospitality, inviting D'Arragon to be seated at the simple breakfast-table. But D'Arragon was looking at Mathilde, who had gone rather hurriedly to the window, as if to breathe the air.
The sun went down at length, leaving a brownish-red sky. This, too, faded to grey in a few minutes, and a steely cold gripped the world as in a vice. Louis d'Arragon made a sudden effort and rose to his feet, beneath which the snow squeaked. "Come," he said. "If we stay, we shall fall asleep, and then " Barlasch roused himself and looked sleepily at his companion.
He was quite himself this morning, and only once did the dull look arrest his features into the stony stillness which his daughters knew. "You are the only one of your name in Dantzig," said D'Arragon, in the course of question and answer as to the safe delivery of letters in time of war.
"And what news do you bring from the sea?" asked Sebastian. "Is your sky there as overcast as ours in Dantzig?" "No, Monsieur, our sky is clearing," answered D'Arragon, eating with a hearty appetite the fresh bread and butter set before him. "Since I saw you, the treaties have been signed, as you doubtless know, between Sweden and Russia and England."
I have never forgotten." D'Arragon turned away towards the window. Sebastian and Mathilde were in the street below, in the shade of the trees, talking with the eager neighbours. "You would have stopped it if you could," said Desiree; and he did not deny it. "It was some instinct," he said at length. "Some passing misgiving." "For Charles?" she asked sharply.
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