"They are there," she said. For she had seen shadowy forms lurking
beneath the trees of the Frauengasse. The street was ill-lighted,
but she knew the shadows of the trees.
"How many?" asked Sebastian, in a dull voice.
She glanced at him quickly--at his still, frozen face and quiescent
hands. He was not going to rise to the occasion, as he sometimes
did even from his deepest apathy. She must do alone anything that
was to be accomplished to-night.
The house, like many in the Frauengasse, had been built by a careful
Hanseatic merchant, whose warehouse was his own cellar half sunk
beneath the level of the street. The door of the warehouse was
immediately under the front door, down a few steps below the street,
while a few more steps, broad and footworn, led up to the stone
veranda and the level of the lower dwelling-rooms. A guard placed
in the street could thus watch both doors without moving.
There was a third door, giving exit from the little room where
Barlasch slept to the small yard where he had placed those trunks
which were made in France.
Desiree had no time to think. She came of a race of women of a
brighter intelligence than any women in the world. She took her
father by the arm and hastened downstairs. Barlasch was at his post
within the kitchen door. His eyes shone suddenly as he saw her
face. It was said of Papa Barlasch that he was a gay man in battle,
laughing and making a hundred jests, but at other times lugubrious.
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