“I want you to take this letter,” said Charles, “to the officer on service at head-quarters, and ask him to include it in his courier. It is, as you see, a private letter—to my wife at Dantzig.”
The man looked at it, and grumbled something inaudible. He took it in his hand and turned it over with the slow manner of the illiterate.
CHAPTER XV. THE GOAL.
God writes straight on crooked lines.
Charles, having given his letter to the sentry with the order to take it to its immediate destination, turned towards the stairs again. In those days an order was given in a different tone to that which servitude demands in later times.
He returned to his room on the first floor without even waiting to make sure that he would be obeyed. He had scarcely seated himself when, after a fumbling knock, the sentry opened the door and followed him into the room, still holding the letter in his hand.
“Mon capitaine,” he said with a certain calmness of manner as from an old soldier to a young one, “a word—that is all. This letter,” he turned it in his hand as he spoke, and looking at Charles beneath scowling brows, awaited an explanation. “Did you pick it up?”
“No—I wrote it.”
“Good. I...” he paused, and tapped himself on the chest so that there could be no mistake; there was a rattling sound behind him suggestive of ironware. Indeed, he was hung about with other things than clocks, and seemed to be of opinion that if a soldier sets value upon any object he must attach it to his person. “I, Barlasch of the Guard—Marengo, the Danube, Egypt—picked up after Borodino a letter like it. I cannot read very quickly—indeed—Bah! the old Guard needs no pens and paper—but that letter I picked up was just like this.”