Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/193

Rh "Be quiet!"

"As God is dear to me, I should have gone!"

"Stop!"

After a while, wishing evidently to change the conversation, she said,—

"Squeeze out my hair, for it wets my shoulders."

Zbyshko grasped her tresses near her head with one hand, with the other he twisted them, saying,—

"Better unbraid them, the wind will dry thy hair immediately."

But she would not because of the thicket through which she had to push. Zbyshko took the beaver on his shoulder.

"Matsko will recover now quickly," said Yagenka, walking ahead; "there is no better remedy than bear's fat to drink, and beaver's fat to rub outside. He will be on horseback in a fortnight."

"God grant!" said Zbyshko. " I await that as salvation, for I cannot in any way leave him sick, but for me it is a punishment to stay here."

"Punishment for thee to stay here?" inquired Yagenka. "How so?"

"Has Zyh told thee nothing of Danusia?"

"He told me something—I know—that she covered thee with a veil—I know—he told me also that every knight makes some vow, that he will serve his lady—But he said that such a service was nothing—for some men, though married, serve a lady; and that Danusia—Zbyshko, what is she? Tell me? Who is Danusia?"

And, pushing up nearer, she raised her eyes and began to look with great alarm at his face. Without paying the least heed to her voice of alarm and her gaze, he said,—

"She is my lady, but also my dearest love. I do not say that to any one, but I will say it to thee as my beloved sister, for we know each other from the time that we were little. I would follow her beyond the ninth river, and beyond the ninth sea, to the Germans, and to the Tartars, for in the whole world there is not such another. Let uncle stay here in Bogdanets, but I will go straight to Danusia. For what is Bogdanets to me without her, what are utensils and herds, and the wealth of the abbot! I will mount a horse and go against the Germans, so help me God! What I have vowed to her I will accomplish, unless I fall first."

"I did not know this," said Yagenka, in a dull voice.