Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/247

Rh They were received and entertained by Zbyshko's acquaintance, Pan Mikolai, who commanded the garrison made up of a handful of knights and three hundred unerring Kurpie bowmen.

Immediately after entering Zbyshko learned to his great vexation that the court was not present. The prince, wishing to entertain the comturs of Schytno and Yansbork, had arranged a great hunt in the Kurpie wilderness, to which the princess also and the ladies of her court had gone so as to lend greater brilliancy to the spectacle. Of ladies whom he knew Zbyshko found only Pani Ofka, the widow of Kryh of Yarzambek, who was housekeeper in the castle. She was very glad to see him, for from the time of their return from Cracow she had told every one who was willing or unwilling to listen, of his love for Dauusia and his adventure with Lichtenstein. These narrations had won for her high esteem among the younger courtiers, and the damsels; hence she was grateful to Zbyshko, and tried now to console the young man in the sadness with which the absence of Danusia filled him.

"Thou wilt not know her," said she. "The maiden's years advance, the seams of her robe are splitting at the neck, for everything in her is growing. She is not a chit as before, and she loves thee differently now from what she did the first time. Let any one cry 'Zbyshko!' in her ear, it is as if some one pricked her with an awl. Such is the lot of us women, against which no help avails. Since it is at God's command— But thy uncle, thou say'st, is well? Why did he not come?—That is our fate. It is dreary for a woman alone in the world. It is a mercy from God that the girl has not broken her legs, for she climbs the tower daily and looks down the road. Every woman of us needs friendship—"

"I will only feed my horses, and go to her, even if I go in the night," answered Zbyshko.

"Do so, but take a guide from the castle, or thou wilt go astray in the wilderness."

Indeed at the supper, which Mikolai made ready for the guests, Zbyshko declared that he would follow the prince straightway, and begged for a guide. The road-weary brothers of the Order pushed up, after the feast, to the immense fireplaces in which whole logs of pine wood were burning, and decided to go only on the morrow, after they had rested. But De Lorche, when he had inquired what the