The Knights of the Cross Part 88

"There are candles burning about the coffin."

Zygfried put on his cloak and left.

When he entered the chapel, he looked around to see whether anybody else was present; then he closed the door carefully, approached the coffin, put aside two of the six candles burning in large brazen candlesticks in front of him, and knelt down before it.

As his lips did not move, it showed that he was not praying. For some time he only looked at the drawn yet still handsome face of Rotgier as though he were trying to discover in it traces of life.

Then amid the dead silence in the chapel he began to call in suppressed tones:

"Dear little son! Dear little son!"

Then he remained silent; it seemed as though he were expecting an answer.

Then he stretched out his hand and pushed his emaciated talon-like fingers under the cloak, uncovered Rotgier's breast and began to feel about it, looking everywhere at the middle and sides below the ribs and along the shoulder-blades: at last he touched the rent in the clothing which extended from the top of the right shoulder down to the armpit, his fingers penetrated and felt along the whole length of the wound, then he cried with a loud voice which sounded like a complaint:

"Oh!... What merciless thing is this!... Yet thou saidst that fellow was quite a child!... The whole arm! The whole arm? So many times thou hast raised it against the Pagans in defence of the Order.... In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Thou foughtest falsely, and so succ.u.mbed in a false cause; be absolved and may thy soul...."

The words were cut short on his lips which began to tremble, and deep silence reigned once more in the chapel.

"Dear little son! Dear little son!"

Now there was something like a pet.i.tion in Zygfried's voice, and at the same time it seemed as he lowered his voice as though his pet.i.tion contained some important and terrible secret.

"Merciful Christ!... If thou art not condemned, give a sign, move thy hand, or give one twitch of the eye, for my old heart is groaning within my breast.... Give a sign, I loved thee, say one word!..."

And supporting himself with his hands upon the edge of the coffin, he fastened his vulture-like eyes upon the closed eyelids of Rotgier and waited.

"Bah! How couldst thou speak?" said he, at last, "when frost and evil odor emanate from thee. But as thou art silent, then I will tell thee something, and let thy soul, flying about here among the flaming candles, listen!"

Then he bent down to the face of the corpse.

"Dost thou remember how the chaplain would not permit us to kill Jurand and how we took an oath. Well, I will keep that oath, but I will cause thee to rejoice wherever thou art, even at the cost of my own d.a.m.nation."

Then he retreated from the coffin, replaced the candlesticks, covered the corpse with the cloak, and left the chapel.

At the door of the room, overpowered with deep sleep, slept the servant, and according to Zygfried's orders Diedrich was already waiting inside.

He was of low stature thickly set, with bowed legs and a square face which was concealed by a dark cowl falling to his arm. He was dressed in an untanned buffalo jacket, also a buffalo belt upon his hips from which was hanging a bunch of keys and a short knife. In his right hand he held a membrane-covered lantern; in the other, a small kettle and a torch.

"Are you ready?" inquired Zygfried.

Diedrich bowed silently.

"I gave orders for you to bring with you a kettle with coal in it."

The short fellow was still silent; he only pointed to the burning wood in the fireplace and took the iron shovel standing at the fireside, and filled the kettle with the burning coal, then he lit the lantern and waited.

"Now listen, dog," said Zygfried; "you have never revealed what Count Danveld commanded you to do; the count also ordered the cutting out of your tongue. But you can still motion to the chaplain with your fingers.

I therefore forewarn you, if you show him even with the slightest motion of your hand what you are to do now by my command, I shall order you to be hanged."

Diedrich again bowed in silence, but his face was drawn on account of the terrible, ominous recollection; for his tongue was torn out for quite another reason than what Zygfried said.

"Now proceed, and lead to the underground cell where Jurand is."

The executioner grasped the handle of the kettle with his gigantic hand, picked up the lantern and then left. At the door they pa.s.sed by the guard who was asleep, descended the stairs, and turned, not toward the princ.i.p.al entrance, but directed their steps to the small corridor in the rear of the stairs, extending through the whole width of the edifice, and terminating in a heavy iron door which was concealed in a niche in the wall. Diedrich opened it and they found themselves again in the open air in a small courtyard surrounded on its four sides by high walled granaries where they kept their stores in case the castle should be besieged. Underneath one of these stores, on the right, was an underground prison. There was not a single guard standing there, because even if a prisoner should succeed in breaking through from the underground prison, he would then find himself in the courtyard which only gave exit through the door in the niche.

"Wait," said Zygfried, and leaning against the wall, he rested, for he felt that something was the matter with him; he was short of breath, as though his breast was too much tightened under the straight coat of mail.

In plain terms, considering what had happened, he felt his old age, and his brow under the cowl was covered with drops of perspiration; he therefore stopped for a moment to recover breath.

The night following the gloomy day became extraordinarily clear and the little courtyard was brightly illuminated by the rays of the moon which caused the snow to glisten with a yellowish tint. Zygfried inhaled with pleasure the cool invigorating air, but he forgot that on a similar bright night Rotgier left for Ciechanow whence he did not return alive.

"And now thou liest in the chapel," he murmured to himself.

Diedrich thought that the count was talking to him; he therefore lifted up his lantern and threw its light upon his face which had a terrible and cadaverous appearance, but at the same time it looked like the head of an old vulture.

"Lead on," said Zygfried.

Diedrich lowered the lantern again which cast upon the snow a yellow circle of light and they proceeded. In the thick wall of the storehouse there was a recess in which several steps led to a large iron door.

Diedrich opened it and went down the stairs in the deep dark aperture, raising the lantern so as to show the way to the count. At the end of the stairs there was a corridor in which, to the right and left, were exceedingly low doors leading to the cells of the prisoners.

"To Jurand!" said Zygfried.

And in a moment the bars creaked and they entered, but there was perfect darkness in the cell. But Zygfried, who could not see well in the dim light from the lantern, ordered the torch to be lighted, and in a moment he was enabled by its bright light to see Jurand lying on the straw. The prisoner's feet were fettered, but the chains on the hands were somewhat longer so as to enable him to carry food to his mouth. Upon his body was the same coa.r.s.e sackcloth which he had on when he was arraigned before the court, but now it was covered with dark blood-stains, because, that day when the fight ended, only when maddened with pain the frantic knight was entangled in the net, the soldiers then tried to kill him, struck him with their halberds and inflicted upon him numerous wounds. The chaplain interfered and Jurand was not killed outright, but he lost so much blood that he was carried to prison half dead. In the castle they expected his death hourly. But owing to his immense strength he prevailed over death, although they did not attend to his wounds, and he was cast into the terrible subterranean prison, in which during the daytime when it thawed drops fell from the roof, but when there was frost the walls were thickly covered with snow and icicles.

On the ground on the straw lay the powerless man in chains, but he looked like a piece of flint shaped in human form. Zygfried commanded Diedrich to throw the light directly upon Jurand's face, then he gazed at it for a while in silence. Then he turned to Diedrich and said:

"Observe, he has only one eye--destroy it."

There was something in his voice like sickness and decrepitude, and for that very reason, the horrible order sounded more terrible, so that the torch began somewhat to tremble in the hand of the executioner. Yet he inclined it toward Jurand's face, and in a moment big drops of burning tar began to fall upon the eye of Jurand, covering it entirely from the brow down to the projecting cheek bone.

Jurand's face twitched, his grey mustachios moved, but he did not utter a single word of complaint. Whether it was from exhaustion, or the grand fort.i.tude of his terrible nature, he did not even groan.

Zygfried said:

"It has been promised that you shall be freed, and you shall be, but you shall not be able to accuse the Order, for your tongue, which you might use against it, shall be torn out."

Then he again signaled to the executioner who replied with a strange guttural sound and showed by signs that for this he roust employ both hands, and therefore wanted the count to hold the light.

Then the old count took the torch and held it in his outstretched, trembling hand, but when Diedrich pressed Jurand's chest with his knees Zygfried turned his head and looked at the h.o.a.rfrost covered wall.

For a while resounded the clank of the chains, followed by the suppressed panting of a human breast which sounded like one dull, deep groan--and then all was still.

Finally Zygfried said:

"Jurand, the punishment which you have suffered you have deserved; but I have promised to Brother Rotgier, whom your son-in-law has killed, to place your right hand in his coffin."

Diedrich, who had just got up from his last deed, bent again upon the prostrate form of Jurand, when he heard Zygfried's words.

After a little while, the old count and Diedrich found themselves again in that open courtyard which was illuminated by the bright moon. When they reentered the corridor, Zygfried took the lantern from Diedrich, also a dark object wrapped up in a rag, and said to himself in a loud voice,