Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/521

Rh power of Yagello, and wished to defer the day of defeat and vengeance.

Hence all discussions broke like a spiderweb, especially those that were carried on with Vitold. In the evening, after Hlava's arrival at Warsaw, came fresh news to the castle: Bronish of Tsiasnota came, an attendant of Prince Yanush, whom he had sent somewhat earlier to Lithuania for tidings, and with him came two considerable princes of Lithuania with letters from Vitold, and from the Jmud men. The tidings were threatening. The Knights were preparing for war. They had strengthened castles, they had made powder, they had made stone cannon-balls, they had brought to the boundary camp-followers and knighthood, while divisions of lighter cavalry and infantry had already crossed the boundaries of Jmud and Lithuania from the direction of Ragneta, Gotteswerder, and other boundary castles. In forest depths, in fields, in villages, shouts of war were heard, and every evening, above the dark sea of forests, flames were blazing already. Vitold had taken Jmud under his evident protection at last; he had sent his managers, and had appointed as leader of the armed people Skirvoillo, famed for bravery. Skirvoillo attacked Prussia, he burnt, destroyed, ravaged. Prince Vitold himself hurried off troops toward Jmud; some castles he provisioned, others, as, for instance, Kovno, he destroyed, lest it might become a stronghold for the Order; and it was no longer a secret to any man that when winter came and frost bound the swamps and wet places, or even earlier should the summer prove a dry one, a mighty war would begin, which would cover Jmud, Lithuania, and Prussian regions; for if the king aided Vitold, the day must come in which the German wave would either cover half a world, or be hurled back for long centuries into the bed occupied by it earlier.

But this was not to happen straightway. Meanwhile the groan of the Jmud people was heard throughout the world,—their despairing complaints of wrong and their calls for justice. That letter of the unfortunate people had been read in Cracow, in Prague, at the court of the Pope, and in other capitals of western Europe. To Prince Yanush open letters had been brought by those people who had come with Bronish. Hence not a few in Mazovia put hands to their sword-hilts involuntarily, considering in spirit whether they would not better place themselves under Vitold's banner of their own wish. They knew that Vitold,