Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/677

 Rh "Yes," answered Povala; "our people are simple: they have not such wealth and comfort as I see in this place, but they are healthy."

And now Italian and French knights approached him and spoke to him in their resonant speech, of which Matsko said that it was as if some one were rattling tin plates. They wondered at his strength; then he touched goblets with them and answered,—

"Such things as this are done at feasts among us frequently, and it happens that even a girl will roll a smaller strip."

But the Germans, who liked to boast among strangers of their size and strength, were enraged and out of countenance, so old Helfenstein called across the table,—

"This is a shame for us! Brother Arnold von Baden, show that our bones, too, are not made of church tapers! Give Arnold a strip."

The servants brought a strip quickly and placed it before Arnold; but he, whether it was that the sight of so many spectators confused him, or that he had really less strength in his fingers than Povala, bent the strip halfway, but was unable to finish.

More than one of the foreign guests, to whom the Knights of the Cross had whispered previously, and more than one time, that war with the King of Poland would begin the next winter, fell to thinking deeply, and remembered that winter in those regions was terribly inclement, and that it would perhaps be better to return in time to a softer climate and their native castles.

There was this wonderful thing in the situation, that such thoughts came to their heads in July,—a time of hot days and splendid weather.