Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/108

84 have to leave her and not be able to keep the promise which he had made.

"Now, poor girl, I shall not place the peacock-plumes at thy feet," said he. "But if I stand before the face of God, I will say: 'Pardon my sins, O God, but whatever there is of good in all the world, give it to no one else but Danusia, daughter of Yurand of Spyhov'."

"Ye became acquainted not long ago," said the princess. "May God grant that it was not in vain."

Zbyshko remembered all that had taken place at the inn of Tynets, and was filled with emotion. At last he begged Danusia to sing for him that same song which she sang when he had seized her from the bench and borne her to the princess.

Danusia, though she had no mind for singing, raised her head at once toward the arch, and closing her eyes like a bird, she began,—

But on a sudden from beneath her closed eyelids abundant tears flowed forth; she could sing no longer. Then Zbyshko seized her in his arms in the same way that he had at the inn in Tynets, and began to carry her through the room, repeating in ecstasy,—

"No, but I would seek thee. Let God rescue me, grow up thou, let thy father permit, then I will take thee, O maiden! Hei!"

Danusia, encircling his neck, hid her face wet with tears on his shoulder, and in him sorrow rose more and more, sorrow which, flowing from the depth of the sylvan Slav nature, changed in that simple soul almost into the pastoral song:

Meanwhile came an event in view of which other affairs lost all significance in people's eyes. Toward the evening of June 21, news went around the castle of a sudden weakness of the queen. The physicians who were summoned, together with the bishop of Cracow, remained in her chamber all night,