Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/660

 222 width, in which, besides a school, an ancient storehouse, and a saddler's workshop, was the chapel of Saint Nicholas; then passing the Nicholas bridge they entered the First Castle proper. The comtur for some time conducted them amid strong walls, strengthened here and there by greater or smaller bastions. Zyndram looked with care at everything; the comtur, even without inquiry, indicated various buildings willingly, as if he wished the guests to see all objects in the utmost detail.

"That great building which your Graces see before you on the left is," said he, "our stable. We are poor monks, but people say that elsewhere even knights are not lodged as horses are in this place."

"People do not reproach you with poverty," said Povala; "but there must be something here besides horse-stalls, since this building is so high, and you, of course, do not lead your horses up stairways."

"Above the stable, which is on the ground-floor and in which there are four hundred horses, are storehouses; these contain a stock of wheat to last ten years, I think. There will never be a siege here; but even should there be, no enemy will conquer us by famine."

Then he turned to the right and again passed a bridge between the bastion of Saint Laurence and the Armor Bastion, and led them to another square, immense, lying in the very centre of the First Castle.

"Observe, your Graces," said the comtur, "that what you see to the north there, though by the power of God impregnable, is only the 'Vorburg,' and may not be compared in strength with the Middle Castle, to which I shall conduct you, still less with the High Castle."

In fact, a separate moat and a special drawbridge divided the Middle Castle from that square; and only in the castle gate, which stood considerably higher, could the knights, when they had turned, at the suggestion of the comtur, take in once more with their vision all that great quadrangle which was called the First Castle. Edifice rose there at the side of edifice, so that it seemed to Zyndram that he saw a whole city. There were inexhaustible supplies of wood laid away in piles as large as houses, heaps of stone cannonballs standing up like pyramids, cemeteries, hospitals, and magazines. Somewhat aside, near a lake in the centre, were the mighty red walls of the "Temple;" that is, an immense storehouse, with an eating-hall for mercenaries and servants.