Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/105

Rh "Shall I handle him? I could not handle Zavisha, or Pashko, or Povala; but without boasting, I can handle two like him. His mother, the Order, will witness that! Was not the Frisian knight stronger? And when I cut from above through his helmet, where did my axe stop? It stopped in his teeth, did it not?"

Zbyshko drew breath at this with great consolation, and said,—

"He will die more easily than the Frisian."

The two men sighed; then the old noble said with emotion,—

"Be not troubled. Thy bones will not be seeking one another at the day of resurrection. I will have an oaken coffin made for thee of such kind that the canonesses of the church of the Virgin Mary have not a better. Thou wilt not die like a peasant, or like a nobleman created by patent. Nay! I will not even permit that thou be beheaded on the same cloth on which they behead citizens. I have agreed already with Amyley for entirely new stuff, from which a king's coat might be made. And I shall not spare masses on thee—never fear!"

Zbyshko's heart was delighted by this, so grasping his uncle's hand he repeated,—

"God reward you!"

But at times, despite every consolation, dreadful yearning seized him; hence another day, when Matsko had come on a visit, and they had scarcely exchanged greetings, he asked while looking through the grating in the wall,—

"But what is there outside?"

"Weather like gold," replied the warrior, "and warmth of the sun makes the whole world lovely." Then Zbyshko put both hands on his uncle's shoulders and bending back his head, said,—

"O mighty God! To have a horse under one and ride over fields, over broad fields. It is sad for a young man to die—awfully sad!"

"People die even on horseback," said Matsko.

"Yes. But how many do they kill before dying!"

And he began to inquire about the knights whom he had seen at the court of the king: about Zavisha, Farurey, Povala, Lis, and all the others,—what were they doing, how did they amuse themselves, in what honorable exercises did their time pass? And he listened eagerly to the narrative of Matsko, who said that in the morning they jumped in full

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