Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/732

 294 curious for news, as usual surrounded him in Kresnia, he answered their numerous queries with the question,—

"Well, are your lances and spears and axes sharpened?"

"But what? Well now! By the wounds of God! what news? Whom have you seen?" called out people from all sides.

"Whom have I seen? Zyndram of Mashkovitse! But what news? Such news that ye will have to saddle your horses at once, I think."

"As God is true! How is that? Tell."

"Have ye heard of Drezdenko?"

"Of course we have heard. But the little castle is like many a one, and there is no more land there than with you in Bogdanets, we think."

"That is a vain cause for war—is it not?"

"Of course it is a vain cause for war. There were greater, but afterward nothing came of them."

"But do ye know what a saying Zyndram uttered because of Drezdenko?"

"Tell quickly, for the caps are burning our heads!"

"He said this to me: 'A blind man was going along the road and he fell over a stone. He fell because he was blind, still a stone was the cause of his fall.' This Drezdenko is such a stone."

"How is that? How? But the Order is standing yet."

"Ye do not understand? Then I will tell you again in this way. If a vessel is too full one drop will make the liquid in it overflow."

Such great enthusiasm seized those knights that Matsko had to restrain it, for they wished to mount their horses and ride to Sieradz.

"Be ready," said he, "but wait patiently. They will not forget us, be sure."

So the people continued in readiness, but they waited long, so long indeed that some began to doubt a second time.

But Matsko did not doubt, for as the coming of birds announces spring, he, as a man of experience, knew how to infer from various signs that war was approaching, and a great war.

First of all, such immense hunts had been ordered in all forests and wildernesses of the crown as the oldest men could not remember. Beaters were assembled in thousands to drive in game. In these hunts fell whole herds of buffaloes, bulls, deer, wild boar, and also smaller animals. The forests were