Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/780

 342 "O God! thou hast wished this!"

The foremost captives were presented to his Majesty. Abdank Skarbek brought in Prince Kazimir of Stetten; the Bohemian knight of Trotsnov brought Conrad, prince in Olesnitsa; Predperko of Koplidov brought Gersdof, who was fainting from wounds; he had led all the foreign knights under the banner of Saint George.

Twenty-two nations had taken part in that battle of the Order against the Poles, and now the king's secretaries were writing, and they recorded the prisoners who, kneeling before his Majesty, begged for pardon, and a return home when ransomed.

The entire army of the Order had ceased to exist.

The Polish pursuit captured the immense camp of the Knights of the Cross, and in it, besides those who had escaped, a great number of wagons laden with fetters for the Poles, and wine to be used at a great feast after victory.

The sun was near its setting. A brief, abundant shower had laid the dust. The king, Vitold, and Zyndram, were preparing to visit the field of battle, when men bore in before them bodies of fallen leaders. The Lithuanians brought the body of the Grand Master, Ulrich von Jungingen, pierced with spears, covered with dust and clotted blood, and placed it before Yagello. The king sighed with pity, and looking at the immense body lying on the ground, face upward, he said,—

"Here is the man who, this morning, thought himself superior to every potentate on earth—"

Then tears began to flow like pearls along his cheeks; after a while he said,—

"But he died the death of the valiant; so we will celebrate his manfulness, and honor him with a proper Christian burial."

And immediately, he issued an order to wash the body carefully in the lake, array it in splendid robes, and cover the coffin with a mantle of the Order.

Meanwhile, they brought in more and more bodies, which the captives recognized. They brought in Kuno Lichtenstein, his throat cut terribly with a misericordia, and Friedrich Wallenrod, the marshal of the Order; the grand keeper of the wardrobe, Count Albrecht von Schwartzberg, and the grand treasurer, Thomas Mercheim, and Count