Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/758

 320 ground—and many other banners of the Order. But unknown to them were the standards of the various foreign guests, thousands of whom had come from every country in Europe: from Austria, Bavaria, Suabia, Switzerland, from Burgundy, famous for its knighthood, from rich Flanders, from sunny France,—whose knights, as Matsko had declared on a time, even if prostrate on the earth, would still utter words of bravery,—and from England beyond the sea, the birthplace of terrible archers whom Mazovian hunters alone could equal—and even from distant Spain, where amid ceaseless struggles with Saracens manhood and honor had flourished in a way to surpass all other countries. And the blood began to storm in the veins of those strong nobles from Sieradz, Konietspole, Kresnia, Bogdanets, Rogov, and Brozova, as well as from other Polish lands, at the thought that they would have soon to join battle with the Germans, and with all that brilliant knighthood of Europe. The faces of the older men grew stern and serious, for they knew how dreadful and merciless that work would be; while the hearts of the young men began to whine, just as hunting dogs whine when, held on a leash, they see the wild beast at a distance. So some of them, grasping more firmly in their hands lances, hilts of swords, and handles of axes, reined back their horses, as if to let them go at a dash; others breathed hurriedly, as if for them it had grown too narrow in their armor.

But the more experienced warriors calmed the younger men by saying: "It will not miss you; there will be plenty for each—God grant that there be not too much."

But the Knights of the Cross, looking from above at that forest plain, saw on the edge of the pine wood only a few Polish regiments, and they were not at all certain that the army with the king at the head of it was before them. It was true that on the left, at the lake, were visible also gray crowds of warriors, and in the bushes glittered something like lance-points, that is, light spears used by Lithuanians. That, however, might be only a considerable scouting party of Poles. Spies from captured Gilgenburg, a number of whom had been brought before the Master, were the first to declare that in front of him stood all the Polish-Lithuanian forces.

But in vain did they speak of the strength of those forces. The Grand Master would not believe them, for from the beginning of that war he believed only what was favorable