For Papa Barlasch was a man of unclean lips.
"There was an old man in there, a sacristan. I asked him where he
kept the dishes, and he said he could not speak French. I jerked my
bayonet into him--name of a name! he soon spoke French."
Barlasch broke off these delicate confidences by a quick word of
command, and himself stood rigid in the roadway before the Imperial
Palace of the Kremlin, presenting arms. A man passed close by them
on his way towards a waiting carriage. He was stout and heavy-
shouldered, peculiarly square, with a thick neck and head set low in
the shoulders. On the step of the carriage he turned and surveyed
the lurid sky and the burning city to the east with an indifferent
air. Into his deep bloodshot eyes there flashed a sudden gleam of
life and power, as he glanced along the row of watching faces to
read what was written there.
It was Napoleon, at the summit of his dream, hurriedly quitting the
Kremlin, the boasted goal of his ambition, after having passed but
one night under that proud roof.
CHAPTER XVI. THE FIRST OF THE EBB.
Tho' he trip and fall
He shall not blind his soul with clay.
The days were short, and November was drawing to its end when
Barlasch returned to Dantzig. Already the frost, holding its own
against a sun that seemed to linger in the North that year,
exercised its sway almost to midday, and drew a mist from the level
plains.
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