Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/380

356 All at once an immense burst of thunder-like laughter was heard through the hall. Yurand, who at the first moment was ready to spring toward his daughter, drew back on a sudden and stood as pale as linen, gazing with astonishment at the pointed head, blue lips, and expressionless eyes of an idiot whom they were giving him as Danusia.

"That is not my daughter!" said he, with a voice of alarm.

"Not thy daughter? " cried Danveld. "By Saint Liborius of Paderborn! Then either we did not rescue thy daughter from the bandits, or some wizard has transformed her, for there is no other in Schytno."

Old Siegfried, Rotgier, and Gottfried exchanged swift glances filled with supreme admiration for the keenness of Danveld, but no man of them had time to speak, for Yurand cried in a terrible voice,—

"She is here! my daughter is in Schytno, I heard her sing! I heard the voice of Danusia."

Thereupon Danveld turned to the assembly and said, coolly and with emphasis,—

"I take all here present to witness, but especially thee, Siegfried of Insburg, and you pious brothers Rotgier and Gottfried, that, in accord with my word and pledged promise, I yield up this maiden whom bandits, vanquished by us, declared to be the daughter of Yurand of Spyhov. If she is not his daughter there is no fault of ours in this, but the will of God, who has given Yurand into our hands."

Siegfried and the two younger brothers inclined their heads in sign that they heard and would testify when needed. Then they exchanged swift glances a second time, for Danveld's work was more than they had been able to hope for: to seize Yurand, and not yield up his daughter, and still to keep promise apparently,—who else could have done that!

But Yurand cast himself on his knees and adjured Danveld by all the relics in Malborg, by the dust and the heads of his ancestors, to give him his daughter, and not to act as a trickster and a traitor who breaks oaths and promises. There was such sincerity and desperation in his voice that some began to divine the deceit; to others it occurred that a wizard might have changed the girl really.

"God is looking at thy treason!" cried Yurand. "By the wounds of the Saviour! by the hour of thy death, give my child to me!"