Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/652

 214 "If the king assists, there will be a great war."

"All our knights are begging the Lord God for it. But even if the king, through regard for Christian blood, should not make a great war, he will help Vitold with grain and money; and it will not be without this, too, that Polish knights will go as volunteers to him."

"As I live they will go," answered Zbyshko. "And perhaps the Order will declare war against the king because of that."

"Oh, no! while the present Master lives there will be no war."

And he was right. Zbyshko had known the Master earlier; but now on the road to Malborg, being, with Zyndram and Povala, at his side nearly all the time, he could observe more closely and estimate the man more accurately. In fact, that journey only confirmed him in the conviction that the Grand Master, Conrad von Jungingen, was not depraved and wicked. He was forced often to act unjustly, for the whole Order was founded on injustice. He had to commit injustice, for the Order reposed on injustice to man. He had to utter calumny, for the practice of calumny had come to him, together with the insignia of his office, and from early years he had grown accustomed to consider calumny as diplomatic skill merely. But he was not a tyrant; he feared the judgment of God, and as far as he was able he restrained the pride and insolence of those dignitaries of the Order who were urging on to war against the power of Yagello. He was a weak man, however. The Order had been accustomed for generations to prey on the property of others, to plunder, to take adjoining lands by force or treachery; since Conrad not only was unable to restrain that predatory hunger, but in spite of himself, by force of acquired impetus, he yielded to it and strove to satisfy this craving. Distant were the days of Winrich von Kniprode, days of iron discipline, with which the Order astonished the whole world of that time. Even during the rule of Conrad Wallenrod, the Master who preceded Jungingen, the Order grew intoxicated with its own might, which was always growing, and which temporary defeats could not diminish, it became intoxicated with glory, with success, with human blood, so that the bonds which held it in union and in strength were loosened. In so far as he was able the Master maintained right and justice; in so far as he was able he lightened personally the iron hand of the Order, which weighed on peasants, on