Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/363

Rh indicated by the villager; he looked at the gray, damp barrier of mist which screened the world before him. Behind the mist was concealed the castle, that evil enemy toward which ill fate and superior force were impelling him. It was near now, near! hence, what had to happen and be accomplished would happen and be accomplished soon. At thought of this, in addition to his fear and anxiety about Danusia, in addition to his readiness to ransom her, even with his blood, from the hands of the enemy, an unheard-of bitter feeling of humiliation was born in his heart, a feeling never felt by him up to that moment. He (Yurand), at the remembrance of whom the comturs of the boundary had trembled, was going now at their command with a penitent head. He, who had overcome and trampled so many of them, felt conquered and trampled at that moment. They had conquered him, not in the field, it is true, not with courage and knightly strength, but still he felt conquered. And for him, that was something so unheard-of that the whole order of the world seemed to him inverted. He was going to humiliate himself before the Knights of the Cross,—he, who, had it not been for Danusia, would have preferred to meet all the power of the Order single-handed. Had it not happened that a single knight, having the choice between shame and death, had struck on whole armies? But he felt that shame might meet him also, and at that thought his heart howled from pain, as a wolf howls when he feels the shaft in his body.

But this was a man who had not only a body, but also a soul of iron. He was able to break others; he was able to break himself also.

"I will not move," said he, "till I have chained this anger which might ruin my child instead of saving her."

And immediately he seized, as it were by the shoulder, his proud heart, with its stubbornness and desire for battle. Whoso might have seen on that hill the man in armor motionless, on that immense horse, would have thought him some giant cast out of iron, and would not have suspected that that motionless knight there was fighting at that moment the hardest battle that ever he had fought in his life. But he wrestled with himself till he conquered and till he felt that his will would not fail him.

Meanwhile the mist grew thin, and, though it had not vanished entirely, there appeared dimly at the end of it something of deeper color. Yurand divined that that was