The stairs were almost dark when Charles and his companion descended them. The rusted musket poised against the doorpost still indicated the supposed presence of a sentry.
“Listen,” said Charles, “I found him burrowing like a rat at a cellar-door in the courtyard. Perhaps he has got in.”
They listened, but could hear nothing. Charles led the way towards the courtyard. A glimmer of light guided him to the door he sought. It stood open. Barlasch had succeeded in effecting an entry to the cellar, where his experience taught him to seek the best that an abandoned house contains.
Charles and de Casimir peered down the narrow stairs. By the light of a candle Barlasch was working vigorously amid a confused pile of cases, and furniture, and roughly tied bundles of clothing. He had laid aside nothing, and his movements were attended by the usual rattle of hollowware. They could see the perspiration gleaming on his face. Even in this cellar there lingered the faint smell of sour smoke that filled the air of Moscow.
De Casimir caught the gleam of jewellery, and went hurriedly downstairs.
“What are you doing there, my friend?” he asked, and the words were scarcely out of his mouth, when Barlasch extinguished his candle. There followed a dead silence, such as comes when a rodent is disturbed at his work. The two men on the cellar-stairs were conscious of the gaze of the bright, ratlike eyes below.
De Casimir turned and followed Charles upstairs again.
“Come up,” he said, “and go to your post.”
There was no movement in response.
“Name of a dog,” cried de Casimir, “is all discipline relaxed? Come up, I tell you, and obey my orders.”
He emphasized his command with the cocking of a pistol, and a slight disturbance in the darkness of the cellar heralded the unwilling approach of Barlasch, who climbed the stairs step by step like a schoolboy coming to punishment.
“It is I who found the door, mon colonel, behind that pile of firewood. It is I who opened it. What is down there is mine,” he said, sullenly. But the only reply that de Casimir made was to seize him by the arm and jerk him away from the stairs.
“To your post,” he said, “take your arm, and out into the street, in front of the house. That is your place.”
But while he was still speaking, they were all startled by a sudden disturbance in the cellar, and in the gloom a man stumbled up the stairs and ran past them. Barlasch had taken the precaution of bolting the huge front door, which was large enough to give passage to a carriage. The man, who exhaled an atmosphere of dust mingled with the disquieting and all-pervading odour of smoke, rushed at the huge door and tugged furiously at its handles.
Charles, who was on his heels, grasped his arm, but the man swung round and threw him off as if he were a child. He had a hatchet in his hand with which he aimed a blow at Charles, but missed him. Barlasch was already going towards his musket, which stood in the corner against the doorpost, but the Russian saw his movement, and forestalled him. Seizing the gun, he presented the bayonet to them, and stood with his back to the door, facing the three men in a breathless silence. He was a large man, dishevelled, with long hair tumbled about his head, and light-coloured eyes, glaring like the eyes of a beast at bay.
In the background de Casimir, quick and calm, had already covered him with the pistol produced as a persuasive to Barlasch. For a second there was silence, during which they all could hear the call to arms in the street outside. The patrol was hurrying down the Petrovka, calling the assembly.
The report of the pistol rang through the house, shaking the doors and windows. The man threw up his arms and stood for a moment looking at de Casimir with an expression of blank amazement. Then his legs seemed to slip away from beneath him, and he collapsed to the floor. He turned over with movements singularly suggestive of a child seeking a comfortable position in bed, and lay quite still, his cheek on the pavement and his staring eyes turned towards the cellar-door from which he had emerged.
“He has his affair—that parishioner,” muttered Barlasch, looking at him with a smile that twisted his mouth to one side. And, as he spoke, the man’s throat rattled. De Casimir was reloading his pistol. So persistent was the gaze of the dead man’s eyes that de Casimir turned on his heel to look in the same direction.
“Quick!” he exclaimed, pointing to the doorway, from which a lazy white smoke emerged in thin puffs. “Quick, he has set fire to the house!”
“Quick—with what, mon colonel?” asked Barlasch.
“Why, go and fetch some men with a fire-engine.”
“There are no fire-engines left in Moscow, mon colonel!”
“Then find buckets, and tell me where the well is.”
“There are no buckets left in Moscow, mon colonel. We found that out last night, when we wanted to water the horses. The citizens have removed them. And there is not a well of which the rope has not been cut. They are droll companions, these Russians, I can tell you.”
“Do as I tell you,” repeated de Casimir, angrily, “or I shall put you under arrest. Go and fetch men to help me to extinguish this fire.”
By way of reply, Barlasch held up one finger in a childlike gesture of attention to some distant sound.
“No, thank you,” he said, coolly, “not for me. Discipline, mon colonel, discipline. Listen, you can hear the ‘assembly’ as well as I. It is the Emperor that one obeys. One thinks of one’s military career.”
With
