Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/551

Rh instead of answering with a blow, seized the knight by the middle, and wishing to take him alive at all costs, strove to drag the man from his saddle; but his own stirrup broke from excessive weight, and both combatants went to the earth. For a while they struggled, fighting with hands and feet; but soon the stronger and younger man mastered his opponent, and, pressing his bowels with his knees, held him there, as a wolf holds a dog which has dared to thrust a face up before him in the thicket. And he held him beyond need, for the German fainted. Meanwhile Matsko and Hlava ran up; when he saw them, Zbyshko shouted,—

"Come and bind him! He is some knight—and belted!" Hlava sprang from his horse, but seeing how helpless the knight was, did not bind him, but opened his armor, took off his girdle with a misericordia which hung from it, cut the strap binding his helmet, and came finally to the screw which held the visor. But barely had he looked on the face of the knight when he sprang up.

"Oh, my lord! but just look!" cried he.

"De Lorche!" called out Zbyshko.

But De Lorche lay there pale, with sweating face and closed eyes, corpselike and motionless.

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