Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/28

4 "But I saw it. Hei! had it not been for Mikolai of Moskorzov, and Yasko of Olesnitsa, and without boasting, had it not been for us, Vilno would not now be existing."

"We know. Ye would not surrender the castle."

"And we did not. Listen, then, attentively to what I tell you; for I am a man who has served, I am a warrior of experience. People of the old time said in their day, 'Lithuania is venomous,' and they spoke truly. The Lithuanians fight well single-handed, but in the open field they cannot measure with the knighthood. When the horses of the Germans sink in swamps, or when they are in a dense forest, it is different."

"The Germans are good knights! " exclaimed the citizens.

"They stand like a wall, man to man, in iron armor, so covered that hardly is the eye of a dog brother of them to be seen through his vizor. And they go in line. It used to happen that the Lithuanians would strike them and be scattered like sand, and if they were not scattered the Germans put them down like a pavement and trampled them. But the Germans are not alone, for all nations in the world serve with the Knights of the Cross. Ah, those strangers are gallant! More than once a foreign knight would bend forward, lower his lance, and even before battle strike all alone into a whole army, like a falcon into a flock."

"Christ!" called out Gamroth. "Who is the best among the foreigners?"

"It depends on the weapon. At the crossbow the English are best; they pierce armor through and through with a shaft, and hit a clove a hundred steps distant. The Chehs cut terribly with axes. At the two-handed sword no one surpasses the German. The Swiss delight in breaking thick helmets with iron flails. But the greatest knights are those who come from the French land. They will fight with thee on foot or on horseback, and hurl terribly valiant words at thee; words which thou wilt not at all understand, for their speech is as if one were to rattle a tin plate, though these people are God-fearing. They have accused us, through German interpreters, of defending Pagans and Saracens against Knights of the Cross, and have bound themselves to prove it by a knightly duel. There is to be a judgment of God between four of their knights and four of ours; the meeting is appointed at the court of, the Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia."

Here greater curiosity seized the country people and the