Barlasch scratched his head without ceremony, and fell into a long train of thought.
“Do you know what I think?” he said at length. “I think that De Casimir was not ill at all—any more than I am; I, Barlasch. Not so ill, perhaps, as I am, for I have an indigestion. It is always there at the summit of the stomach. It is horse without salt.”
He paused and rubbed his chest tenderly.
“Never eat horse without salt,” he put in parenthetically.
“I hope never to eat it at all,” answered Desiree. “What about Colonel de Casimir?”
He waved her aside as a babbler who broke in upon his thoughts. These seemed to be lodged in his mouth, for, when reflecting, he chewed and mumbled with his lips.
“Listen,” he said at length. “This is De Casimir. He goes to bed and lets his beard grow—half an inch of beard will keep any man in the hospital. You nod your head. Yes; I thought so. He knows that the viceroy, with the last of the army, is at Thorn. He keeps quiet. He waits in his roadside inn until the last of the army has gone. He waits until the Russians come, and to them he hands over the Emperor's possessions—all the papers, the maps, the despatches. For that he will be rewarded by the Emperor Alexander, who has already promised pardon to all Poles who have taken arms against Russia and now submit. De Casimir will be allowed to retain his own baggage. He has no loot taken at Moscow—oh no! Only his own baggage. Ah—that man! See, I spit him out.”
And it is painful to record that he here resorted to graphic illustration.
“Ah!” he went on triumphantly, “I know. I can see right into the mind of such a man. I will tell you why. It is because I am that sort of man myself.”
“You do not seem to have been so successful—since you are poor,” said Desiree, with a laugh.