Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/293

Rh The princess, hearing this, embraced her husband in presence of the courtiers; then she kissed his hands repeatedly. He smiled meanwhile, and said,—

"Well, you see, a good affair is settled! The Holy Ghost has not withheld wit even from women! Call the girl in."

"Danusia! Danusia!" cried the princess.

After a while, in the doorway of the side chamber appeared Danusia, her eyes red from watching, in her hands a two-handled basin, full of steaming kasha with which Father Vyshonek was to poultice Zbyshko's bruised bones, and which an old court lady had just given her.

"Come, little orphan," said the prince. "Put down the vessel and come hither."

She approached him somewhat timidly, for the "Pan" roused a certain dread in her; he drew her toward him kindly, and stroked her face, saying,—

"Well, child, grief has come to thee, has it not?"

"It has indeed!" replied Danusia. And having sorrow in her heart, and tears ready, she burst into weeping at once, but quietly, so as not to offend Prince Yanush.

"Why art thou crying? " inquired he.

"Because Zbyshko is sick," replied she, putting her fists in her eyes.

"Have no fear; nothing will harm him. Is not that true, Father Vyshonek?"

"By God's will he is nearer marriage than death," said the kind priest.

"Wait," said the prince; "I will give a medicine that will help, or cure him altogether."

"The balsam which the Knights of the Cross sent?" cried Danusia, vivaciously, taking her hands from her eyes.

"Better rub a dog with what the Knights of the Cross sent than thy dear young knight whom thou lovest. I will give thee something else." Then he turned to the courtiers and called: "Will some one go to the store chamber for spurs and a belt?"

When they were brought, he said to Danusia: "Take these to Zbyshko, and say that henceforth he is belted. If he dies he will stand before God a belted warrior; if he lives I will finish the rest in Tsehanov or Warsaw."

When Danusia heard this she embraced the prince's feet; then she grasped with one hand the insignia of knighthood, with the other the basin, and sprang to the room in which