The Knights of the Cross Part 77

But suddenly, before it became entirely dark, he heard behind him the sound of footsteps in the snow.

He looked back: there were coming toward him, from the direction of the city, six men, armed with lances and halberds; in their midst walked a seventh man supporting himself on a weapon.

"They will perhaps open the gate for them and then I shall ride in with them," thought Jurand. "They will not try to take me by force, nor kill me, because there are too few; should they attack me, however, it will prove that they do not mean to keep their promise, and then--woe to them!"

Thus thinking, he raised the steel axe hanging at his saddle, so heavy, that its weight was too great for the two hands of an ordinary man, and moved toward them.

But they did not think of attacking him. On the contrary, the servants planted their lances and halberds in the snow, and as the night was not entirely dark yet, Jurand saw that the handles somewhat trembled in their hands.

The seventh, who appeared to be the superior, put out his left arm quickly, and turning his hand upward, said:

"Are you the knight Jurand of Spychow?"

"Yes."

"Do you wish to hear my message?"

"I listen."

"The powerful and religious Count von Danveld ordered me to tell you, lord, that until you dismount, the gate will not be opened for you."

Jurand remained motionless for a while, then he dismounted, the horse being instantly taken away by one of the archers.

"The arms must be surrendered to us," again said the man with the weapon.

The lord of Spychow hesitated. Perhaps they would attack him unarmed, and kill him like a beast; or capture and cast him under ground? But after a moment he thought that if it were to be so, they would have sent more men. But should they throw themselves on him, they would not destroy his armor at once, and then he could wrench a weapon from the nearest and kill them all before a.s.sistance could arrive. They knew him well.

"And even if they should wish to shed my blood," he said to himself, "I came for no other purpose than that."

Thus thinking, he threw down first the axe, then the sword, and finally the _misericordia_, and waited. They took everything, and then the man who had addressed him previously, withdrawing several steps, stopped and began to speak in an insolent, loud voice:

"For all the wrongs you have done to the Order, you must, by the count's orders, put on this sack cloth which I leave here, tie around your neck the scabbard of your sword with a rope, and wait humbly at the gate until the count's grace orders it to be opened for you."

And the next moment Jurand remained alone in the darkness and silence. In the snow before him the penitential robe and rope showed black while he stood long, feeling something in his soul dissolving, breaking, agonizing, dying, and that shortly he would be a knight no more, Jurand of Spychow no more, but a beggar, a slave without a name, without fame, without respect.

Therefore, a long time pa.s.sed before he approached the penitential robe, and said:

"How can I do otherwise? Christ, Thou knowest they will kill the innocent child, if I do not do all they order. And Thou also knowest that I would not do that for the sake of my own life! Disgrace is a distasteful thing!... distasteful!--but Thou also wast disgraced of old. Well then, in the name of the Father and of the Son...."

He then bent down, put on the robe in which were cut the openings for the head and hands, then he tied around his neck the scabbard of his sword, and dragged himself to the gate.

He did not find it open; but now it was immaterial to him whether they opened it sooner or later. The castle sank into nocturnal silence, only the guards called now and then to each other on the bastions. In the tower near the gate there was light in one window high up; the others were dark.

The night hours flew one after another, on the sky appeared the crescent moon and threw light upon the gloomy walls of the castle. It became so quiet that Jurand was able to hear his own heart-beats. But he stiffened and became entirely petrified, as if his soul were taken from him, and took no account of anything. One thought remained with him, that he had ceased to be a knight, Jurand of Spychow, but what he was he did not know.... Sometimes it also seemed to him that in the middle of the night death was coming to him across the snow from those hanged men that he had seen in the morning....

Suddenly he quivered and awoke entirely.

"O gracious Christ! what is that?"

From the high window in the adjacent tower, the sounds of a lute, hardly heard at first, reached his ear. Jurand, while on the way to Szczytno, was sure that Da.n.u.sia was not in the castle, and yet this sound of the lute at night aroused his heart in an instant. It seemed to him that he knew those sounds, and that n.o.body else was playing but she--his child!

his darling.... He therefore fell upon his knees, clasped his hands to pray, and listened s.h.i.+vering, as in a fever.

Just then a half-childish and as if ardently longing voice began to sing:

"Had I the dear little wings Of a gosling, I would fly To Jasiek at Szlonsk."

Jurand wished to reply, to utter the dear name, but his words were imprisoned in his throat, as if an iron band squeezed them. A sudden wave of pain, tears, longing, suffering, collected in his breast; he therefore cast himself down with his face in the snow and began in ecstasy to call upon heaven in his soul, as if in thankful prayer:

"O Jesus! I hear my child once again! O Jesus!" ...

And weeping began to tear his gigantic body. Above, the longing voice continued to sing amid the undisturbed silence of the night:

"Would that I might sit In the little Szlonsk garden To gaze upon little Jasiek The poor orphan!"

In the morning a stout, bearded German retainer began to prod the ribs of the knight lying at the gate.

"Upon your feet, dog!... The gate is open, and the count orders you to appear before him."

Jurand awoke, as if from sleep. He did not catch the man by the throat, he did not crush him in his iron hands, he had a quiet and almost humble face; he arose, and, without saying a word, followed the soldier through the gate.

He had hardly crossed, when a clang of chains was heard, and the bridge began to be drawn up again, while in the gateway itself fell a heavy iron grating.

END OF PART FOURTH.

PART FIFTH.

CHAPTER I.

Jurand, finding himself in the castleyard, did not know at first where to go, because the servant, who had led him through the gate, had left him and gone toward the stables. It is true, the soldiers stood near the palisades, either singly or in groups, but their faces were so insolent, and their looks so derisive, that the knight could easily guess that they would not show him the way, and even if they were to make a reply to his question, it would be a brutal or an indignant one.

Some laughed, pointing at him with their fingers, others commenced to throw snow at him, like yesterday. But he, noticing a door larger than the others, over which was cut out in stone Christ on a cross, turned to it, thinking that if the count and the elders were in another part of the castle or in other rooms, somebody must set him right.

And so it happened. The instant Jurand approached that particular door, both halves of it opened suddenly, and there stood before it a youth with a head shaven like the clericals, but dressed in a worldly dress, who inquired:

"Are you Sir Jurand of Spychow?"

"I am."

"The pious count ordered me to guide you. Follow me."

And he commenced to lead him through a great vaulted vestibule toward a staircase. At the stairs though he halted, and casting a glance at Jurand, again inquired: