tend as truly here for the honor of my rank and soldierhood as in the furious onset, the deadly camp, or the consuming famine. A soldier must expect all of these; and it is his duty to confront them as he may. But it is a new experience in a knight’s education when he is required to stand on guard against the treachery of his own prince, and the deadly advantage taken of his own loyalty. Brought up, as I have been, in the manly school of the Premysls, I feel a flush of shame at the dastard spirit that seems to reign in the palace of a gallant race. Assuredly a new school of honor, of policy, and of integrity has usurped the place of the chivalry of the past. Dark deceit, double-meaning casuistry, mental reservation, cowardly prevarication, and shameless falsehood have banished the candor, the ingenuousness, the unswerving courage, and perhaps the rash combativeness of the past. Never has the palace of the Premysls sunk in the abyss of infamy by the deliberate prostitution of sacred hospitality to the malignant purposes of studied treachery, until a new race and an alien philosophy has perverted the soul of the prince of Bohemia. The new dynasty is being built up in evil, and must encounter the inevitable retribution of evil.”
Calmed by these reflections and cheered by his soldierly acceptance of peril, come from whence it might, Zawis regained his composure; and if his enemies counted on darkness, solitude, and the violent transition from honor and dignity to want and squalor, to bend his spirit to confession of wrong-doing, assuredly
