Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/114

90 season. This brought no relief to him, and mildened no sorrow.

"I am not a king without her," said he to the bishop, "but a penitent sinner who will never know solace." Then he fixed his eyes on the floor, and no one could win another word from him.

Meanwhile all thoughts were occupied with the funeral of the queen. From every part of the country new crowds of lords, nobles, and people began to assemble; especially came the indigent, who hoped for abundant profit from alms at the funeral, which was to last a whole month. The queen's body was placed in the cathedral on an elevation, and placed in such manner that the wider part of the coffin, in which rested the head of the deceased, was considerably higher than the narrower part. This was done purposely, so that people might see the queen's face.

In the cathedral masses were celebrated continually; at the catafalque thousands of wax candles were burning, and amid those gleams and amid flowers she lay calm, smiling, like a white mystic rose, with her hands crossed on laurel cloth. The people saw in her a saint; they brought to her people who were possessed, cripples, sick children; and time after time, in the middle of the church was heard the cry, now of some mother who noted on the face of her sick child a flush, the herald of health, now of some paralytic who on a sudden recovered strength in his helpless limbs. Then a quiver seized the hearts of people, news of the miracle flew through church, castle, and city, then ever increasing crowds of human wretchedness appeared, wretchedness which could hope for help only through a miracle.

Meanwhile Zbyshko was entirely forgotten, for who, in face of such a gigantic misfortune, could think of an ordinary noble youth and his imprisonment in a bastion of the castle!

Zbyshko, however, knew from the prison guards of the queen's death, he had heard the uproar of the people around the castle, and when he heard their weeping and the tolling of bells he cast himself on his knees, and calling to mind his own lot, mourned with his whole soul the death of the idolized lady. It seemed to him that with her something that was his had been quenched also, and that in view of such a death it was not worth while for any one to live in the world.

The echo of the funeral, the church bells, the singing of processions, and the movement of crowds, reached him for