Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/510

72 precisely he had gone straight to Zbyshko, and commanded them to remain at Spyhov.

Her voice trembled at last as if with sorrow, or sadness, and when she had finished a moment of silence followed. But from the lindens was heard the singing of nightingales, which seemed to beat in through the open window in the manner of a rain shower and fill the room. The eyes of all were turned to Yurand, who, with closed lids and head thrown back, did not give the least sign of life.

"Do you hear?" asked Father Kaleb at last.

He bent his head back still more, raised his left arm, and pointed to the sky.

The light of the moon fell straight on his face, on his white hair, on his eyepits, and there was in his countenance such suffering, and at the same time such a boundless surrender to the will of God, that it seemed to all that they were looking at a soul freed from bodily bonds, a soul which had separated once and forever from earthly life, expected nothing in it, and looked for nothing.

Again followed silence, and again no sound was heard save the trilling of nightingale voices filling the yard and the chamber. But great compassion seized Yagenka on a sudden, and childlike love, as it were, for that hapless old man; so, following her first impulse, she sprang to him, and grasping his hand, fell to kissing it and covering it with tears at the same time.

"I too am an orphan," cried she from the depth of her swollen heart—"I am no young man, I am Yagenka of Zgorzelitse. Matsko took me to keep me from wicked people, but now I will stay with you till God gives you back Danusia."

Yurand did not exhibit the least astonishment, just as if he had known before that she was a girl, but he gathered her in toward him and inclined her to his bosom; while she, continuing to kiss his hand, spoke on in broken and sobbing accents,—

"I will stay with you now, and Danusia will come back. After that I will go to Zgorzelitse. God is above orphans. The Germans killed my father too, but your love will live and come back to you. God the Merciful grant this; grant it also the Most Holy Mother, the Compassionate!"

Then Father Kaleb knelt on a sudden, and called in a solemn voice,—