Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/208

184 "But he will marry thee, and that before long, as God is in heaven!"

"Well, we shall see!" answered Yagenka.

And at the same time she began to laugh through her tears, and look at the abbot as if wishing to ask how he knew that.

Meanwhile Zbyshko returned to Kresnia, and went straight to the priest, for he wished a mass said for his uncle's recovery; then he went directly to the inn in which he expected to find young Vilk and Stan of Rogov.

In fact he found both, and also a crowd of people,—nobles by birth and patent, laudworkers, and some jugglers showing various German tricks.

At the first moment he could not distinguish any one, for the inn windows, with oxbladder panes, let in little light; and only when a boy of the place threw pine sticks on the fire did he see in one corner Stan's hairy snout, and Vilk's angry, passionate visage behind tankards of beer.

Then he went toward them slowly, pushing people aside on the way; and at last coming up, he struck the table with his fist till he made everything thunder through the inn.

They rose at once, and pulled up their leather girdles before grasping their sword hilts. Zbyshko threw his glove on the table, and, speaking through his nose as was the custom of knights when they challenged, he uttered the following unexpected words,—

"If either of you two, or other knightly men in this room deny that the most wonderful and most virtuous maiden in the world is Panna Danusia, the daughter of Yurand of Spyhov, I challenge him to a combat on foot, or on horseback, to his first kneeling, or his last breath."

Stan and Vilk were astonished, as the abbot would have been had he heard anything similar; and for a time they could utter no word. What lady is that? Moreover for them the question was of Yagenka, not of her, and if that wildcat did not care about Yagenka, what did he want of them? Why had he made them angry before the church? Why had he come there? Why was he seeking a quarrel? From these queries such confusion rose in their heads that their mouths opened widely. Stan stared as if he had before him, not a man, but some kind of German wonder.

Vilk, being quicker-witted, knew something of knightly customs, and knew that knights often vow service to some women and marry others; he thought that in this case it