Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/506

68 "And we, why are we to stay in Spyhov?"

" Should she be found, as your grace sees, there would indeed be no reason to stay here."

Yagenka was silent, but her cheeks flushed.

"I thought, and I think now," said Hlava, "that we shall not snatch her alive from those dog brothers, but everything is in the Lord's hand. I must tell from the beginning. We went to Schytno. The knight Matsko showed Lichtenstein's letter to the under-voyt, and the under-voyt, since he had carried a sword behind Lichtenstein in his youth, kissed the seal before our eyes, received us hospitably, and suspected nothing. If we had had some men near by we might have taken the castle, so far did he trust in us. There was no hindrance either in seeing the priest, we talked two nights through, and learned wonderful things, which the priest knew from the executioner."

"The executioner is dumb."

"Dumb, but he knows how to tell the priest everything by signs, and the priest understands the man as if he were speaking with the living word to him. Wonderful is that which has happened; the finger of God must have been in it. That executioner cut off Yurand's hand, plucked the tongue from him, and burnt out his eye. He is of such sort that when a man is in question he shudders at no punishment; even were they to command him to tear a man to pieces with his teeth, he would do so. But he will not raise a finger on any girl, and should they command him to do so, no punishment would move him. He is in this state of mind for the reason that once he himself had an only daughter whom he loved wonderfully, and whom the Knights of the Cross—"

Here Hlava hesitated and did not know how to continue; seeing which Yagenka said,—

"What do I care about an executioner's daughter?"

"It touches the affair," answered Hlava. "After our young lord cut up the knight Rotgier the old comtur Siegfried became almost insane. In Schytno they say that Rotgier was his son, but the priest denies that; though he confirms this, that never has a father loved a son more, and to gain revenge, he has sold his soul to the devil, as the executioner has witnessed. He talked to the dead man, as I to you; the corpse smiled at him from the coffin, gritted its teeth, and licked its lips with its black tongue when the old comtur promised the head of Pan Zbyshko.