Page:In Desert and Wilderness (Sienkiewicz, tr. Drezmal).djvu/229

Rh "And what is a knight-errant?" asked Nell, turning her pretty head towards him.

"Long, long ago in the mediæval days there were knights who rode over the world, looking for adventure. They fought with giants and dragons, and do you know that each one had his lady, whom he protected and defended?"

"And am I such a lady?"

Stas pondered for a while, after which he replied:

"No, you are too small. All those others were grown up."

And it never occurred to him that probably no knight-errant had ever performed as much for his lady as he had done for his little sister. Plainly it appeared to him that whatever he had done was done as a matter of course.

But Nell felt aggrieved at his words; so with a pout she said:

"And you once said in the desert that I acted like a person of thirteen. Aha!"

"Well, that was once. But you are eight."

"Then after ten years I shall be eighteen."

"A great thing! And I shall be twenty-four! At such age a man does not think of any ladies for he has something else to do; that is self-evident."

"And what will you do?"

"I shall be an engineer or a sailor or, if there is a war in Poland, I shall go to fight, just as my father did."

While she asked uneasily:

"But you will return to Port Said?"

"We both must return there first."

"To papa!" the little girl replied.

And her eyes were dimmed with sorrow and longing. Fortunately there flew at that moment a small flock of wonderfully fine parrots, gray, with rosy heads, and a