Ere long a summons of surrender reached Fürstenberg. It contained a menace of the most rigorous punishment to be visited on all who should venture to resist the king’s troops.
The commander of the party also intimated that an imperial force had been dispatched in aid of the king; and formally required Witek to surrender all garrisons and castles under threat of the direst penalties already decided against their master in case of delay. He also declared that unconditional surrender alone could release Zawis from the dreadful doom awaiting him in case of hesitation. “You will see him severed in pieces before your walls,” said the amiable officer, “if you attempt to fight; and your only hope of seeing him again in freedom, and in his place, is to submit to the king’s mercy.”
Necessarily consultations followed. Long debates and divided sentiment distracted every garrison. In the dreadful alternative before them every soldier received a welcome to express his thoughts; every retainer enjoyed the right to elicit the best counsel by interposing his own sentiment. The fatal absence of the one mind whom all would have obeyed to the death, the disposition to look to that source alone, both from confidence and from habit, at length turned the course of debate to the question: “What would Zawis himself have done in such a conjuncture?”
“I know,” said Witek, “my brother’s face has never turned from his foe, and his hand has never failed when an enemy came before him.
