There are many who overlook the fact that in Northern lands, more
especially in such plains as Lithuania, Courland, and Poland, travel
in winter is easier than at any other time of year. The rivers,
which run sluggishly in their ditch-like beds, are frozen so
completely that the bridges are no longer required. The roads, in
summer almost impassable--mere ruts across the plain--are for the
time ignored, and the traveller strikes a bee-line from place to
place across a level of frozen snow.
Louis d'Arragon had worked out a route across the plain, as he had
been taught to shape a course across a chart.
"How did you return from Kowno?" he asked Barlasch.
"Name of my own nose," replied that traveller. "I followed the line
of dead horses."
"Then I will take you by another route," replied the sailor.
And three days later--before General Rapp had made his entry into
Dantzig--Barlasch sold two skeletons of horses and a sleigh at an
enormous profit to a staff officer of Murat's at Gumbinnen.
They had passed through Rapp's army. They had halted at Konigsberg
to make inquiry, and now, almost in sight of the Niemen, where the
land begins to heave in great waves, like those that roll round Cape
Horn, they were asking still if any man had seen Charles Darragon.
"Where are you going, comrades?" a hundred men had paused to ask
them.
"To seek a brother," answered Barlasch, who, like many unprincipled
persons, had soon found that a lie is much simpler than an
explanation.
Pages:
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188