Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/288

264 with the speed of his horse. Seeing him, Hugo called quickly,—

"Whoever that man be, he must die."

"I recognize him," said Siegfried, who, though the oldest among the brothers, had an uncommonly quick eye. "He is the attendant who killed the wild bull with an axe. True, that is he!"

"Hide your knives, lest he be frightened," said Danveld.

"I will strike first again; you support me."

Meanwhile the Cheh rode up, and about ten or eight steps away checked his horse in the snow. He saw a corpse in a pool of blood, a horse without a rider, and astonishment was depicted on his face; it remained, however, but the twinkle of an eye. Next moment he turned to the brethren as though he had seen nothing, and said,—

"I salute you, brave knights!"

"We recognized thee," answered Hugo, approaching him slowly. "Hast thou any question with us?"

"The knight Zbyshko of Bogdanets, whose spear I carry, has sent me, he who was wounded by the wild bull at the hunt; he was not able himself to come."

"What does your master want of us?"

"Because you complained of Yurand of Spyhov unjustly, to the detriment of his knightly honor, my master gives command to declare to you that you have not acted as true knights, but that you have barked as dogs; and that he summons the man who used the words to a combat on foot or on horseback to the last breath, in which struggle he will meet you when you indicate the place, and when, with God's favor and mercy, his present sickness permits him."

"Tell your master that Knights of the Cross endure insults patiently, for the sake of the Saviour; as to a struggle without personal permission from the Master or the Grand Marshal, they cannot answer, but for this permission, however, we will write to Malborg."

Again the Cheh looked at the body of De Fourcy, for it was to him that he had been sent specially. Zbyshko knew that the Knights of the Cross did not accept challenges; but hearing that among the five was a lay knight, he wished to challenge that one, thinking thus to influence and win Yurand. Now the man was lying there slaughtered like an ox in the presence of four Knights of the Cross.

Hlava, it is true, did not know what had happened; but, inured from childhood to danger of all kinds, he sniffed