Their footsteps were inaudible on the trodden snow. It
was a dark night and not cold; for the great frosts of this terrible
winter were nearly over.
Barlasch carried his musket and bayonet. He had instructed Desiree
to walk in front of him, should they meet a patrol. But Rapp had no
men to spare for patrolling the town. There was no spirit left in
Dantzig; for typhus and starvation patrolled the narrow streets.
They quitted the town to the north-west, near the Oliva Gate. There
was no guard-house here because Langfuhr was held by the French, and
Rapp's outposts were three miles out on the road to Zoppot.
"I have played this game for fifty years," said Barlasch, with a low
laugh, when they reached the earthworks, completed, at such enormous
cost of life and strength, by Rapp; "follow me and do as I do. When
I stoop, stoop; when I crawl, crawl; when I run, run."
For he was a soldier now and nothing else. He stood erect, and
looked round him with the air of a young man--ready, keen, alert.
Then he moved forward with confidence towards the high land which
terminates in the Johannesberg, where the peaceful Dantzigers now
repair on a Sunday afternoon to drink thin beer and admire the view.
Below them on the right hand lay the marshes, a white expanse of
snow with a single dark line drawn across it--the Langfuhr road with
its double border of trees.
Barlasch turned once or twice to make sure that Desiree was
following him; but he added nothing to his brief instructions.
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