There was no one else in the Neuer Markt, for it was the supper hour.
Out in the middle of the river a few ships were moored: high-prowed, square-sterned vessels of a Dutch build trading in the Frische Haaf and in the Baltic.
The soldier saw the boat steal out towards them. There was no other boat at the steps or in sight. He stood up on the edge of the roof, and after carefully measuring his distance, with quick eyes aglow with excitement, he leapt lightly across the leafy space into the topmost boughs, where he alighted in a forked branch almost without sound.
At dawn the next morning, while the shoemaker still slept, the soldier was astir again. He shivered as he rose, and went to the window, where his clothes were hanging from a rafter. The water was still dripping from them. Wrapt in a blanket he sat down by the open window to write while the morning air should dry his clothes.
That which he wrote was a long report—sheet after sheet closely written. And in the middle of his work he broke off to read again the letter that he had written the night before. With a quick, impulsive gesture he kissed the name it bore. Then he turned to his work again.
The sun was up before he folded the papers together. By way of a postscript he wrote a brief letter.
“DEAR C.—I have been fortunate, as you will see from the enclosed report. His Majesty cannot again say that I have been neglectful. I was quite right. It is Sebastian and only Sebastian that we need fear. Here they are clumsy conspirators compared to him. I have been in the river half the night listening at the open stern-window of a Reval pink to every word they said. His Majesty can safely come to Konigsberg. Indeed, he is better out of Dantzig. For the whole country is riddled with that which they call patriotism, and we treason. But I can only repeat what his Majesty disbelieved the day before yesterday—that the heart of the ill is Dantzig, and the venom of it Sebastian. Who he really is and what he is about you must find out how you can. I go forward to-day to Gumbinnen. The enclosed letter to its address, I beg of you, if only in acknowledgment of all that I have sacrificed.”
The letter was unsigned, and bore the date, “Dawn, June 10.” This and the report, and that other letter (carefully sealed with a wafer) which did not deal with war or its alarms, were all placed in one large envelope. He did not seal it, however, but sat thinking while the sun began to shine on the opposite houses. Then he withdrew the open letter, and added a postscript to it:
“If an attempt were made on N.'s life—I should say Sebastian. If Prussia were to play us false suddenly, and cut us off from France—I should say nothing else than Sebastian. He is more dangerous than a fanatic; for he is too clever to be one.”
The writer shivered and laughed in sheer amusement at his own misery as he drew on his wet clothes. The shoemaker was already astir, and presently knocked at his door.
“Yes, yes,” the soldier cried, “I am astir.”
And as his host rattled the door he opened it. He had unrolled his long cavalry cloak, and wore it over his wet clothes.
“You never told me your name,” said the shoemaker. A suspicious man is always more suspicious at the beginning of the day.
“My name,” answered the other carelessly. “Oh! my name is Max Brunner.”
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