Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/87

Rh ornament. The queen walked slowly from the sacristy to the altar with her eyes uplifted, in one hand a book, in the other a rosary. Zbyshko saw the lily-colored face, the blue eyes, the features simply angelic, full of peace, goodness, mercy, and his heart began to beat like a hammer. He knew that by command of God he ought to love his king and his queen, and he had loved them in his own way, but now his heart seethed up in him on a sudden with great love, which comes not of command, but which bursts forth of itself, like a flame, and is at once both the greatest honor and humility, and a wish for sacrifice. Zbyshko was young and impulsive; hence a desire seized him to show that love and faithfulness of a subject knight, to do something for her, to fly somewhere, to slay some one, to capture something, and lay down his head at the same time. "I will go even with Prince Vitold," said he to himself, "for how else can I serve the saintly lady, if there is no war near at hand?" It did not even come to his head that he could serve otherwise than with a sword, or a javelin, or an axe, but to make up for that he was ready to go alone against the whole power of Timur the Lame. He wanted to mount his horse immediately after mass and begin—what? He himself did not know. He knew only that he could not restrain himself, that his hands were burning, that his whole soul within him was burning.

So again he forgot altogether the danger which was threatening him. He forgot even Danusia for a while, and when she came to his mind because of the childlike singing which was heard all at once in the church, he had a feeling that that was "something else." To Danusia he had promised faithfulness, he had promised three Germans, and he would keep that promise; but the queen was above all women, and when he thought how many he would like to kill for the queen he saw in front of him whole legions of breastplates, helmets, ostrich and peacock plumes, and felt that according to his wish that was still too little.

Meanwhile he did not take his eyes from her, asking in his swollen heart, "With what prayer can I honor her?" for he judged that it was not possible to pray for the queen in common fashion. He knew how to say, "Pater noster, qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen Tuum," for a certain Franciscan in Vilno had taught him those words; perhaps the monk himself did not know more, perhaps Zbyshko had forgotten the rest; it is enough that he was unable to say the whole Pater noster (Our Father), so he began to repeat in