Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/410

386, and dropped without control. He retreated in terror and bent back, but the glitter of an axe flashed in his eyes, and its edge fell on his right shoulder like a thunderbolt. To the ears of the spectators came the single piercing shriek: "Jesus!" Rotgier withdrew one step more and fell backward to the centre.

Immediately there was an uproar, a movement on the balcony, as in a hive where bees, warmed by sun-rays, buzz and move. Knights ran down the steps in crowds, serving-men sprang over the wall of snow to look at the bodies. Everywhere were heard shouts of: "Here is the judgment of God!" "Yurand has an heir!" "Glory and thanks to him!" "He is a man for the axe!" Others cried: "Look at him and wonder!" "Yurand himself could not have cut better!" In fact a crowd of curious people formed around the body of Rotgier. He lay on his back with a face white as snow, his mouth widely open, and his bloody shoulder divided from the neck to the armpit so terribly that it held by some filaments only. Then a few men remarked: "He was alive a little while ago and walked over the earth proudly, but he moves no finger now!" And thus speaking, some wondered at his stature, for he occupied a great space on the field of combat, and seemed larger after death than before; others fixed the price of his peacock plumes as they changed colors marvelously on the snow, and a third group his armor, which was held to be worth a good village. But Hlava had just come up with two of Zbyshko's attendants to strip that armor from the dead man, and the curious surrounded Zbyshko, praising him to the skies and extolling him, for it seemed to them proper that his glory should fall on the whole knighthood of Mazovia and Poland. Meanwhile they removed his shield and axe to relieve him, and Mrokota unbuckled his helmet and covered his sweat-moistened hair with a cap of scarlet. Zbyshko, as if in a maze, stood, breathing heavily, with the fire in his eyes still unquenched, with face pale from resolve and exertion, trembling somewhat from excitement and struggle. They took him now by the arm and led him to the prince and princess, who were waiting, in a heated room, near the chimney. The young knight knelt before them and, when Father Vyshonek had blessed him and repeated eternal rest for the souls departed, the prince embraced Zbyshko.

"The Most High God has judged between him and thee," said he, "and guided thy hand, for which praised be His name