Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/189

Rh out broad meadows covered with weeds, as well as a blue line of forests.

"Those forests belong to Stan of Rogov," said she.

"To him who would be glad to take thee."

"He would take if I would only give myself," said she, laughing.

"Thou canst defend thyself easily, having Vilk as assistant, who, as I hear, grits his teeth at the other. It is a wonder to me that a challenge to the death has not passed between them already."

"It has not because papa, when he was going to the war, said: 'If ye fight I shall not set eyes on either of you.' What were they to do? When at our house they fume at each other, but drink at the inn afterward in Kresnia together till they fall under the table."

"Stupid fellows!"

"Why?"

"Because when Zyh was not at home, one or the other ought to have made an attack and taken thee forcibly. What could Zyh have done, if on his return he had found thee with a child in thy arms?"

Yagenka's blue eyes flashed at once.

"Dost thou think that I would have yielded?—or that we have not people, or that I cannot handle a spear, or a crossbow? If they had tried! I should have hunted each man of them home; besides, I should myself have attacked Brozova or Rogov. Papa knows that he can go to the war very safely."

Thus speaking she wrinkled her beautiful brows, and shook the crossbows so threateningly that Zbyshko laughed and said,—

"Well, thou shouldst be a knight, not a maiden."

But she grew calm and said,—

"Stan guarded me from Vilk, and Vilk from Stan. I was under the care of the abbot, moreover, and it is better for every man not to dispute with the abbot."

"Oh, indeed!" answered Zbyshko; "every one here fears the abbot. But I, so help me Saint George as I speak the truth, should have feared neither the abbot nor Zyh, nor the hunters at thy father's house, nor thee, but I would have taken thee—"

At this Yagenka stopped on the spot, and raising her eyes to Zbyshko, inquired with a certain strange, mild, halting voice,—

"Wouldst thou have taken me?"