Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/591

 otherwise. But your brother does not speak our language as you do."

"He understands some, but does not speak. My brother has more strength than I, though I am not a piece of a man, but his wit is duller."

"Oh, he is not dull, as it seems to me," said Matsko.

"Wolfgang, what does he say?" inquired Arnold again.

"He praises thee."

"Of course I do," added Matsko, "for he is a true knight, and that is the main thing. I tell you sincerely that I intended to free him to-day on his word, and let him go whithersoever he wished, if he would return in a year even. That is as it should be among belted knights;" and he looked into Wolfgang's face carefully.

Wolfgang frowned and said:"I would let you go on your word perhaps, if you had not helped pagan dogs against our people."

"We have not," answered Matsko.

And now rose the same kind of sharp dispute as on the day previous with Arnold. Though truth was on the old knight's side, he had more trouble now, for Wolfgang was keener than his brother. But from the discussion came this good, that the younger brother too heard of all the crimes of Schytno, its false oaths and treacheries, and also of the fate of the unfortunate Danusia. Touching this and the crimes which Matsko brought before him, he had nothing to answer. He was forced to confess that their revenge was just, and that the Polish knights had the right to act as they had acted.

"By the sacred bones of Liborius, I shall not pity Danveld. They say that he practised the black art, but God's power and justice are greater than the black art. As for Siegfried, I have no means of knowing if he served the devil also, but I shall make no pursuit to save him; for, first, I have not the cavalry, and, second, if he tortured that girl, let him not peep even once out of hell." Here he stretched himself and added: "God aid me now and at my death hour."

"But with that unfortunate martyr, how will it be?" inquired Matsko. "Will you not give permission to take her home? Is she to die in your dungeons? Think of God's anger."

"I have no affair with the woman," answered Wolfgang, abruptly. "Let one of you take her to her father if he will come back, but I will not let off the other."