Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/646

 208 not easy for me; and you are not the young girl of former days, but—as it were—something—entirely—"

And he could not find the comparison; but she interrupted his efforts and said,—

"Some time has been added to my age—and the Germans have killed my father in Silesia."

"True! God grant eternal light to him!"

They rode on some time side by side in silence, and thoughtfully, as if listening to the low sound of the pinetrees, then she inquired,—

"But after ransoming Matsko wilt thou stay in these parts?"

Zbyshko looked at her as if in wonder, for up to that moment he had been given so exclusively to mourning and sadness that it had not come to his head to think of what would happen later. So he raised his eyes as if in meditation, and after a while he said,—

"I know not! O merciful Christ! how can I know? I know that when I travel anywhere my fate will follow after me. Hei! a sad fate! I will ransom my uncle, and then go perhaps to Vitold to accomplish my vows against the Knights of the Cross; and perhaps I shall perish."

At this the girl's eyes grew misty, and bending toward the young man somewhat, she said in a low voice, as if entreating,—

"Do not perish; do not perish!"

And again they ceased to speak, till at the very walls of the place Zbyshko shook himself out of thoughts that were gnawing him.

"But you—but thou—wilt thou stay here at the court?" asked he.

"No. It is dreary for me here without my brothers, and without Zgorzelitse. Stan and Vilk must be married before this, and even if they are not I do not fear them."

"God grant me to bring Uncle Matsko to Zgorzelitse. He is such a friend of thine that thou mightst depend on him always. But do thou remember him also."

"I promise sacredly to be, as it were, his own child to him."

And after these words she wept in earnest, for in her heart there was gloom and trembling.

Next day Povala of Tachev appeared at Zbyshko's inn and said to him,—