“What is it?” asked Barlasch of the sentry at the town gate, while they waited for their passports to be returned to them.
“It is a proclamation from the Emperor of Russia—no one knows how it has got here.”
“And what does he proclaim—that citizen?”
“He bids the Dantzigers rise and turn us out,” answered the soldier, with a grim laugh.
“Is that all?”
“No, comrade, that is not all,” was the answer in a graver voice.
“He proclaims that every Pole who submits now will be forgiven and set at liberty; the past, he says, will be committed to an eternal oblivion and a profound silence—those are his words.”
“Ah!”
“Yes, and half the defenders of Dantzig are Poles—there are your passports—pass on.”
They drove through the dark streets where men like shadows hurried silently about their business.