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Updated: June 24, 2025
I have seen the river full of English ships before Napoleon chased you off the seas." D'Arragon smiled as he unfolded the letter. "He has not done it yet," he said, with that spirit which enables mariners of the Anglo-Saxon race to be amused when there is a talk of supremacy on the high seas. He read the letter carefully, and his face hardened.
"So far as I know, there is no other Sebastian," replied he; and Desiree, who had guessed the motive of the question, which must have been in D'Arragon's mind from the beginning, was startled by the fulness of the answer. It seemed to make reply to more than D'Arragon had asked. It shattered the last faint hope that there might have been another Sebastian of whom Charles had written.
He was looking at her with grave eyes trained to darkness. But she looked past him towards the sky, which was faintly lighted by the aurora. Her averted eyes and rigid attitude were not without some suggestion of guilt. "My ship is ice-bound at Reval," said D'Arragon, in a matter-of-fact way. "They have no use for me until the winter is over, and they have given me three months' leave."
For women do not understand that spirit of adventure which makes the mercenary soldier, and urges the sailor to join an exploring expedition without hope of any reward beyond his daily pay, for which he is content to work and die loyally. "And I," she asked, "what am I to do?" "We must know where to find you," replied D'Arragon.
While you are saying farewell, I will go out and speak to him. What he has to tell may interest you and your comrades at sea may help your escape from the city this morning." He took his hat as he spoke and went to the door. Mathilde, thirsting for the news that seemed to hum in the streets like the sound of bees, rose and followed him. Desiree and D'Arragon were left alone.
He had turned again to Louis and shook him by the shoulders in the fulness of his joy. He had not distinguished between Mathilde and Desiree, and it was towards Mathilde that D'Arragon looked with a polite and rather formal repetition of his bow. "It is I... I am Desiree," said the younger sister, coming forward with a slow gesture of shyness. D'Arragon took her hand.
It was this thought that broke into her sleep at night, that haunted her waking hours. She glanced at Louis d'Arragon, and held her peace. "Then, Monsieur," he said, "you have every reason to suppose that if Madame returns to Dantzig now, she will find her husband there?" De Casimir looked at D'Arragon, and hesitated for an instant. They both remembered afterwards that moment of uncertainty.
By to-morrow we shall fill it with keepsakes. And here is another. He is hungry. So am I, comrade. I come from Moscow bah!" And so they fought their way through the stream. They could have journeyed by a quicker route D'Arragon could have steered a course across the frozen plain as over a sea but Charles must necessarily be in this stream. He might be by the wayside.
"So the Emperor is here, in Dantzig?" He turned towards Sebastian, who stood with a stony face. "Which means war," he said. "It always means war," replied Sebastian in a tired voice. "Is he again going to prove himself stronger than any?" "Some day he will make a mistake," said D'Arragon cheerfully. "And then will come the day of reckoning."
With another gesture of protest Sebastian gathered his cloak round him and followed. D'Arragon had taken Desiree so literally at her word that he allowed her father no time for hesitation, nor a moment to say farewell. She was alone in the kitchen before she had realized that they were going. In a minute Barlasch returned.
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