all the while."

"What was his name?" asked D'Arragon.

"Oh--I forgot the name he gave. It was a false one. He was disguised as
a common soldier--and he was in reality an officer of the staff. But I
know the name of the officer to whom he wrote his report of his night's
lodging here--his colleague in the secret police, it would seem."

"Ah!" said D'Arragon, busying himself with his haversack.

"It was De Casimir--a Polish name. And in the last two days I have
heard of him. He has accepted the Emperor's amnesty. He has married a
beautiful woman, and is living like a prince at Cracow. All this since
the siege of Dantzig began. In time of war there is no moment to lose,
eh?"

"And the other? He who slept in this room. Has he passed through
Konigsberg again?"

"No, that he has not. If he had, I should have seen him. You can
believe me, I wanted to see him. I was at my place on the bridge all
the time--while the French occupied Konigsberg--when the last of them
hurried away a month ago with the Cossacks close behind. No. I should
have seen him, and known him. He is not on this side of the Niemen, that
fine young gentleman. Now, what can I do to help you to-morrow?"

"You can help me on the way to Vilna," answered D'Arragon.

"You will never get there."

"I will try," said the sailor.

CHAPTER XXVII. A FLASH OF MEMORY.

Nothing can cover his high fame but Heaven,
No pyramids set off his memories,
But the eternal substance of his greatness
To which I leave him.

"Why I will not let you go out into the streets?" said Barlasch one
February morning, stamping the snow from his boots. "Why I will not let
you go out into the streets?"

He turned and followed Desiree towards the kitchen, after having
carefully bolted the heavy oaken door which had been strengthened as if
to resist a siege. Desiree's face had that clear pallor which marks an
indoor life; but Barlasch, weather-beaten, scorched and wrinkled, showed
no sign of having endured a month's siege in an overcrowded city.

"I will tell you why I will not let you go into the streets. Because
they are not fit for any woman to go into--because if you walked from
here to the Rathhaus you would see sights that would come back to you in
your sleep, and wake you from it, when you are an old woman. Do you know
what they do with their dead? They throw them outside their doors--with
nothing to cover their starved nakedness--as Lisa put her ash