CHAPTER LIV.
Zbyshko could not overtake his attendant, for Hlava travelled night and day, resting only as much as was absolutely needed to save the horses from falling dead. These beasts, since they ate only grass, were weak and could not go so far through the forests in a day as in places where oats were found easily. Hlava spared not himself, and had no regard for the advanced age and weakness of Siegfried. The old Knight of the Cross suffered terribly, therefore, all the more since the strong Matsko had hurt his bones previously at the tarpit. But most grievous for the old man were the gnats swarming in the damp forests. He could not drive them away, for his hands were tied, and his feet bound under the horse's belly. Hlava did not, it is true, inflict any torture, but he had no pity on Siegfried, and freed his right hand only when they halted for eating. "Eat, wolf snout, so that I may bring thee alive to the master of Spyhov." Such were the words with which he encouraged him to refreshment. At the beginning of that journey the thought had come to Siegfried to kill himself by hunger; but when he heard Hlava say that he would open his teeth with a dagger, and put nourishment down his throat forcibly, he preferred to yield rather than permit insult to his honor as a knight, and his dignity as a member of the Order.
Hlava wished at all costs to reach Spyhov considerably earlier than Zbyshko, so as to save his lady from confusion. He, a petty noble, simple but clever and not deficient in knightly feeling, understood clearly that there would be something of humiliation for Yagenka to be in Spyhov at the same time with Danusia. "We may tell the bishop in Plotsk," thought be, "that the old lord of Bogdanets, because of guardianship, had to take her with him; and then, let it be only mentioned that she is under the protection of the bishop, and that she has at Zgorzelitse an inheritance from the abbot, even a voevoda's son will not be too much for her." This reckoning sweetened the toils of his journey, for he was troubled by the thought that the happy news
