Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/176

152 The forest went to sleep. Gloom rose from the earth and lifted itself toward the bright light of evening, which at last began to fail, to grow sombre, to be black, and to perish. "Now it will be silent till the wolves begin," thought Zbyshko.

He regretted, however, that he had not taken a crossbow, for he could have brought down an elk or a wild boar with ease. Meanwhile from the side of the swamp came for some time yet stifled voices, like painful groaning and whistling.

Zbyshko looked toward that swamp with a certain timidity, for the man Radzik, who on a time had lived in a mud hut there, had vanished with his family, as if he had dropped through the earth. Some said that robbers had borne them away, but there were persons who saw later along the side of the hut certain strange tracks, neither human nor animal, and they racked their heads over this greatly; they were even thinking whether or not to bring the priest from Kresnia to bless that place. It did not come to this, it is true, for no man was found willing to live there, and the hut, or rather the clay on the brush walls of it, dropped down during rain, but thenceforth the place enjoyed no good repute. Vavrek, the bee man, did not indeed care for that; he spent his nights there in summer, but there were various reports about Vavrek also.

Zbyshko, having a fork and an axe, had no fear of wild beasts, but he thought of unclean powers with a certain alarm, and was glad when these noises ceased finally.

The last gleams of light had vanished, and perfect night had come. The wind ceased; there was not even the usual sigh in the tops of the pine trees. Now and then here and there a pine cone fell, giving out on the background of the general stillness a far-reaching, sharp sound; except this, the silence was such that Zbyshko heard his own breathing.

He sat a long time in this manner, thinking first of the bear that might come, and then of Danusia, who was moving with the Mazovian court into distant regions. He remembered how he had caught her in his arms at the moment of parting with the princess, how her tears had flowed down his cheeks; he remembered her bright face, her blond head, her garland of star thistles, her singing, her red shoes with long tips, which he had kissed at the moment of parting,—finally, everything that had happened since they had become acquainted; and such sorrow seized him because she was