Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/80

56 he was covered with questions about it. The expedition was nearly ready, for great armies had moved to Eastern Rus, and in case of success it would extend the supremacy of King Yagello over almost half the earth, to the unknown depths of Asia,—to the boundaries of Persia, and the banks of the Aral. Matsko, who formerly had been near the person of Vitold, and who was able to know his plans therefore, knew how to tell them in detail, and even so eloquently that before the bell had sounded for mass a crowd of the curious had formed around him in front of the cathedral. "It was a question," he said, "of an expedition in favor of the Cross. Vitold himself, though called Grand Prince, rules Lithuania by appointment of Yagello, and is merely viceroy. His merit, therefore, will fall on the king. And what glory for newly baptized Lithuania, and for Polish power, if their united armies shall carry the Cross to regions in which if the name of the Saviour has ever been mentioned, it was only to be blasphemed, regions in which the foot of a Pole or Lithuanian has never stood up to this time! The expelled Tohtamysh, if Polish and Lithuanian troops seat him again on the last Kipchak throne, will call himself 'son' of King Vladislav and, as he has promised, will bow down to the Cross together with the whole Golden Horde."

They listened to these words with attention, but many did not know well what the question was,—whom was Vitold to assist? against whom was he to war? Hence some said: "Tell us clearly, with whom is the war?"

"With Timur the Lame," answered Matsko.

A moment of silence followed. The ears of Western knighthood had been struck more than once, it is true, by the names of the Golden, Blue, and Azoff Hordes, as well as various others, but Tartar questions and domestic wars between individual Hordes were not clearly known to them. On the other hand, one could not find a single man in Europe of that day who had not heard of the awful Timur the Lame, or Tamerlane, whose name was repeated with not less dread than the name of Attila aforetime. Was he not "lord of the world" and "lord of times," ruler of twenty-seven conquered kingdoms, ruler of Muscovite Rus, ruler of Siberia, China to India, Bagdad, Ispahan, Aleppo, Damascus,—a man whose shadow fell across the sands of Arabia onto Egypt, and across the Bosphorus onto the Byzantine Empire, destroyer of the human race, monstrous builder of pyramids made of human skulls, victor