Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/733

 Rh smoking for entire weeks; meat was dried, smoked, salted for future use and sent to the chief towns of provinces, and thence to be stored at Plotsk. It was evident that the question was one of supplies for great armies. Matsko knew well what to think of this, for Vitold had ordered the very same kind of hunts before each large expedition to Lithuania. But there were other signs also. For instance, peasants had begun to flee in crowds from "under the German" to the kingdom and to Mazovia. To the district of Bogdanets mainly the subjects of German knights in Silesia had come, but people saw that everywhere the same movement was going on, but especially in Mazovia. Hlava, who was managing in Spyhov in Mazovia sent from there between ten and twenty Mazovians who had fled to him from Prussia. These men had begged permission to take part in the war "on foot," for they wished to avenge wrongs on the Knights whom they hated with all their souls. They said that some boundary villages in Prussia were almost wholly deserted, for the free land tillers had moved out of them with their wives and children to the Mazovian Principalities.

The Knights of the Cross hanged, it is true, all fugitives whom they caught, but nothing could restrain the unfortunate people, and many a one of them preferred to die rather than live under the terrible yoke of the Germans. Later "grandfathers" (minstrels) from Prussia swarmed through the whole kingdom. All went to Cracow. They came from Dantzig, from Malborg, from Torun, and even from distant Krolevets, from all Prussian towns and from all places where there were commandants. Among them were not only minstrels, but sextons, organists, various cloister servants, and even clerics and priests. It was thought that they would bring information touching everything carried out in Prussia, such as: military preparations, strengthening of castles, garrisons, mercenary troops, and foreign officers. In fact people whispered to one another that the voevodas in the chief towns of provinces, and, in Cracow, members of the city council, had shut themselves in with those visitors for whole hours, listening to them and writing down the facts which they gave. Some went back unobserved to Prussia and then returned anew to the kingdom. News came from Cracow that the king and the lords of the council knew through them of every step taken by the Knights of the Cross.

The opposite took place in Malborg. A certain spiritual