He turned to the right, but found his way blocked at the corner of
the Langenmarkt, where the road narrows to pass under the Grunes
Thor. Here the idlers of the evening hour were collected in a
crowd, peering over each other's shoulders towards the roadway and
the bridge. Sebastian was a tall man, and had no need to stand on
tip-toe in order to see the straight rows of bayonets swinging past,
and the line of shakos rising and falling in unison with the beat of
a thousand feet on the hollow woodwork of the drawbridge.
The troops had been passing out of the city all the afternoon on the
road to Elbing and Konigsberg.
"It is the same," said a man standing near to Sebastian, "at the
Hohes Thor, where they are marching out by the road leading to
Konigsberg by way of Dessau."
"It is farther than Konigsberg that they are going," was the
significant answer of a white-haired veteran who had probably been
at Eylau, for he had a crushed look.
"But war is not declared," said the first speaker.
"Does that matter?"
And both turned towards Sebastian with the challenging air that
invites opinion or calls for admiration of uncommon shrewdness. He
was better clad than they. He must know more than they did. But
Sebastian looked over their heads and did not seem to have heard
their conversation.
He turned back and went another way, by side streets and the little
narrow alleys that nearly always encircle a cathedral, and are still
to be found on all sides of the Marienkirche.
Pages:
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60