Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/327

Rh calmly and peacefully. Others, however, had perished while struggling to the last with the storm, for they were frozen in postures full of effort. Some sleighs were overturned; in some the tongues were broken. Time after time the shovels uncovered backs of horses bent like bows, or heads with teeth driven into the snow; men were in the sleighs and around the sleighs, but they found no women. At moments Zbyshko worked with the shovel till the sweat flowed from his forehead; at moments he looked with throbbing heart into the eyes of corpses, thinking whether he would see among them a beloved face—all in vain! The light shone only on the stern moustached visages of warriors from Spyhov; neither Danusia nor any other woman was present.

"How is this?" asked the young knight of himself, with astonishment.

And he called to those who were working farther away, asking if they had not found anything; but they found only men. At last the work was done. The attendants attached their own horses to the sleighs, and sitting on the seats moved with the bodies toward Nedzborz, to see if they could not in the heat there restore to life any of the bodies. Zbyshko remained with the Cheh and two others. It came to his mind that Danusia's sleigh might have separated from the party if drawn, as was proper to suppose, by the best horses. Yurand might have ordered to drive it ahead or might have left it somewhere on the roadside at a cottage. Zbyshko knew not what to do; in every case he wanted to search the near drifts, the alder grove, and then turn back and search along the highway.

In the drifts they found nothing. In the alder grove wolf eyes gleamed at them repeatedly, but they found no trace of people or horses. The plain between the alder grove and the highway was glittering then in moon rays, and on the white sad expanse were seen here and there at a distance, a number of dark spots, but those too were wolves which at the approach of men vanished speedily.

"Your Grace," said Hlava at last," we are riding and searching here uselessly, for the young lady of Spyhov was not in the retinue."

"On the highway!" answered Zbyshko.

"We shall not find her on the highway; I looked with care to discover if there were not boxes in the sleighs, and things pertaining to women. There was nothing. The young lady has remained in Spyhov."