Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/428

404 of the chapel came the dull, undefined blows of the hammer, and then nothing disturbed the silence save the calling of sentries. It was near midnight when the old knight woke as if from sleep and called the boy,—

"Where is Brother Rotgier?" asked he.

The boy, startled by the silence, the events, and sleeplessness, did not understand evidently, for he looked at him with alarm, and answered with a quivering voice,—

"I do not know, lord."

The old man smiled as if heart-broken and said mildly,

"I asked, child, if he is in the chapel."

"He is, lord."

"That is well. Tell Diedrich to be here with a lantern and wait till I come. Let him have also a kettle with coals. Is there a light now in the chapel?"

"There are candles burning at the side of the coffin."

When Siegfried entered he surveyed the chapel from the door to see if any one was present, then he closed the door carefully, approached the bier, put aside two candles from the six which were burning in great brass candlesticks, and knelt at the coffin. His lips made no movement whatever, hence he was not praying. For some time he looked only at the stiffened but still comely face of Rotgier, as if wishing to find traces of life in it. Then amid the quiet of the chapel he called in low tones,—

"O son! O son!"

He was silent again. It seemed that he was waiting for an answer.

Then he stretched forth his hands, thrust his dried talon-like fingers under the mantle which covered Rotgier's bosom, and began to feel beneath it. He sought everywhere, at the middle, at the sides, below the ribs and along the shoulder-blades; at last he felt through the cloth the cleft which extended from the top of the right shoulder to a point below the armpit; he pressed in his fingers, pushed them along the whole length of the wound, and again he spoke with a voice in which complaint seemed to tremble,—

"Oo—what a merciless blow! But thou didst say that he was just a stripling! The entire shoulder! The whole arm! How often thou didst raise that arm against Pagans in defending the Order! And now a Polish axe has hewn it from thee, and this is thy end!—This is the close of thy career! Christ did not bless thee, for it is evident that He cares more for one wrong done to man than for our