Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/433

Rh toward the space lighted by the chapel windows. Along the road he pondered over what had happened. He felt a certain conviction that his end was now approaching, that these were his last deeds on earth, that for them he would have to answer before God alone; still his soul of a Knight of the Cross, though less false by nature than cruel, had, under the influence of implacable necessity, become so accustomed to the evasions of cheating, and to shielding the bloody deeds of the Order, that even now he thought involuntarily of casting the infamy of the torture and the responsibility for it both from himself and from the Order. Diedrich was dumb, he could make no confession, and though he could explain to the chaplain he would not do so from very terror. Then what? Then who could learn that Yurand had not received all those wounds in battle? He might easily have lost his tongue from a spear thrust between the teeth; a sword or an axe might have cut his right hand off; and he had only one eye, hence what wonder that that eye was knocked out when he hurled himself in madness on the whole garrison of Schytno? Ah, Yurand! The last delight of his life shook up for a moment the heart of old Siegfried. "Yes, Yurand, should he recover, must be freed!" Here Siegfried recalled how he had counselled with Rotgier touching this, and how the young brother said, with a smile, "Let him go then whithersover his eyes lead, and if he cannot find Spyhov let him inquire the way to it." For what had happened had been partly determined between him and Rotgier. But now, when Siegfried entered the chapel a second time, and, kneeling down at the coffin, laid Yurand's bloody hand at the feet of Rotgier, the joy which had quivered in him a moment earlier was reflected on his face for the last time.

"Seest thou," said he, "I have done more than we decided, for King Yan of Luxemburg, though blind, appeared in battle, and died with glory, but Yurand will not rise again; he will perish like a dog near some fence."

Here again he felt the lack of breath, just as before, when he was going to Yurand's prison, and on his head the weight as it were of an iron helmet; this lasted, however, but one twinkle of an eye. He breathed deeply, and continued,—

"Ei, and now comes my time. I had only thee, now I have no one. But if it is destined me to live longer, I vow to thee, my son, that on thy grave I will place the hand which slew thee, or die myself. Thy slayer is living yet—"