Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/258

234 beautiful and opens more and more, so her eyes were opened to love, and in consequence there was something in her then which had not been there previously,—a certain beauty no longer a child's beauty, a certain mighty attraction, intoxicating, issuing from her as heat from a flame or as odor from a rose.

Zbyshko felt this, but did not give himself account of it, for he forgot himself. He forgot even that he had to serve at the table. He did not see that the courtiers were looking at him, nudging each other with their elbows, showing Danusia and him to one another, and laughing; neither did he notice De Lorche's face, as it were petrified by amazement, nor the staring eyes of Danveld, which were fixed on Danusia, and reflecting the flame of the chimney seemed as red and as flashing as the eyes of a wolf. He recovered only when the trumpet sounded again in sign that it was time for the wilderness, and when Princess Anna turned to him and said,—

"Thou wilt go with us, so as to be able to have pleasure, and speak to the maiden of love; to this I shall be glad to listen."

She left the table then with Danusia, so as to be ready to mount. Zbyshko sprang to the yard where men were holding horses covered with hoar frost, and snorting. These were for the prince and princess, guests, and courtiers. In the yard there were not so many people as before, for the beaters had gone out in advance with snares, and had vanished in the wilderness. The fires had died down; day had appeared, bright, frosty, the snow squeaked under foot; and the trees, moved by a light breeze, scattered dry, glittering frost flakes.

The prince came out promptly and mounted; he was followed by an attendant with a crossbow, and a spear so heavy and long that few men could wield it. Prince Yanush wielded it, however, with ease, for he, like other Mazovian Piasts, possessed uncommon strength. There were even women of that stock, who in marrying foreign princes wound around on their fingers at the wedding feast broad plates of iron. Near the prince were two other attendants ready to aid in emergency; these were chosen from all heirs in the lands of Tsehanov and Warsaw, and they were tremendous to look at, with shoulders like forest trees. De Lorche, who had come from afar, looked on these men with amazement.