Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/540

102 have issued orders to take as many prisoners as possible, and should there happen among them a knight or a brother of the Order, not to kill him."

"But why is that, lord?" asked Hlava.

"Look thou sharply too that this order be carried out. A knight, if from foreign parts, goes about in cities, or in castles; he sees a world of people and hears a world of news, and if he is a knight of the Order he hears more than others. This, as God lives, is true: I have come here to capture some one of the more important men, and exchange him. That dear girl is all that remains to me—in case she is living yet."

When he had said this he put spurs to his horse and pushed out to the head of the division to give final orders and escape from sad thoughts, for which there was then no time, since the place of the ambush was not distant.

"Why does my young lord think that his wife is still living, and that she is in these regions?" asked Hlava.

"He thinks so because Siegfried did not kill her at the first impulse in Schytno; this being so, we may hope that she is still living. If he had killed her the Schytno priest would not have given us the account he did give, an account which Zbyshko himself heard. It is hard for the greatest brute, even, to raise hands on a defenceless woman. What, defenceless woman?—on an innocent little girl!"

"Hard, but not for a knight of the Order. Have you forgotten Prince Vitold's children?"

"It is true that they have wolf hearts, still it is true also that they did not kill her in Schytno, and that Siegfried himself came to these parts; hence he may have hidden her in some castle."

"Ei! in that case, if we could only surprise this island and this castle!"

"But look at those men," said Matsko.

"True! true! but I have an idea to give my young master—"

"If thou hadst ten ideas thou couldst not throw stone walls down with pikes!"

And Matsko pointed to the line of pikes with which the greater part of the warriors were provided; then ho asked,—

"Hast thou ever seen such an army?"

Hlava had indeed never seen such an army. Before him advanced a dense legion of warriors, and they advanced