Page:Sienkiewicz - The knights of the cross.djvu/94

70 "No. He is a noble, who swore on his knightly honor that he would appear."

"And he will not appear!" said Lichtenstein, with a sneer and raising his head.

With that a plaintive youthful voice called out not far from the shoulders of the Knight of the Cross,—

"May God never grant that I should prefer shame to death. It was I who did that, I, Zbyshko of Bogdanets."

At these words the knights sprang toward the hapless Zbyshko, but they were stopped by a threatening beck of the king, who rose with flashing eyes, and called in a voice panting from anger, a voice which was like the sound of a wagon jolting over stones,—

"Cut off his head! cut off his head! Let the Knight of the Cross send his head to the Grand Master at Malborg!"

Then he cried to the young Lithuanian prince, son of the viceroy of Smolensk,—

"Hold him, Yamont!"

Terrified by the king's anger, Yamont laid his trembling hand on the shoulder of Zbyshko, who, turning a pallid face toward him, said,—

"I will not flee."

But the white-bearded castellan of Cracow raised his hand in sign that he wished to speak, and when there was silence, he said, "Gracious king! Let that comtur be convinced that not thy anger, but our laws punish with death an attack on the person of an envoy. Otherwise he might think the more justly that there are no Christian laws in this kingdom. I will hold judgment on the accused to-morrow!"

He pronounced the last words in a high key, and evidently not admitting even the thought that that voice would be disobeyed, he beckoned to Yamont, and said,—

"Confine him in the tower. And you, lord of Tachev, will give witness."

"I will tell the whole fault of that stripling, which no mature man among us would have ever committed," said Povala, looking gloomily at Lichtenstein.

"He speaks justly," said others at once; "he is a lad yet; why should we all be put to shame through him?"

Then came a moment of silence and of unfriendly glances at the Knight of the Cross; meanwhile Yamont led away Zbyshko, to give him into the hands of the bowmen standing in the courtyard of the castle. In his young heart he felt