Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/166

142 "And should thou kiss her on the other hand for what she has brought," put in Matsko, "it would not be too much."

"What has she brought?" inquired Zbyshko, looking around in the yard, not seeing anything save the horse tied to a post.

"The wagons have not come yet, but they will come," answered Yagenka.

Matsko began to name what she had brought, not omitting anything. When he mentioned the two beds Zbyshko said:

"I am glad to lie down on an oxskin, but I thank you for having thought of me also."

"It was not I, but papa," said the girl, blushing. "If you prefer a skin you are free to prefer it."

"I prefer what comes to hand. On the field more than once after battle we slept with a dead Knight of the Cross for a pillow."

"But have you ever killed a Knight of the Cross? Surely not!"

Zbyshko, instead of answering, began to laugh.

"Fear God, girl!" cried Matsko; "thou dost not know him! He has done nothing else but kill Germans till it thundered. He is ready for lances, for axes, for everything; and when he sees a German from afar, even hold him on a rope, he will pull to him. In Cracow he wanted to slay Lichtenstein, the envoy, for which they lacked little of cutting his head off. That is the kind of man he is! And I will tell thee of the two Frisians from whom we took their retinue, and a booty so valuable that with one half of it one might buy Bogtlanets."

Here Matsko told of the duel with the Frisians, and then of other adventures which had met them, and deeds which they had accomplished. They had fought behind walls, and in the open field with the greatest knights from foreign lands. They had fought with Germans, French, English, and Burgundians. They had been in raging whirls of battle, when horses, men, arms, Germans, and feathers formed one mass, as it were. And what had they not seen besides! They had seen castles of red brick belonging to Knights of the Cross, Lithuanian wooden fortresses, and churches such as there are not near Bogdanets, and towns, and savage wildernesses, in which Lithuanian divinities, driven out of their sanctuaries, whine in the night-time; and various marvels. And in all places where it came to battle Zbyshko