Page:Zawis and Kunigunde (1895).djvu/57

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THE COUNCIL BANQUET
53

the old man. “Milota has waited for his opportunity, and now if a counter charge be made against Otakar in person, and it seems likely to succeed, or is forcibly made, we may at once look for a wide gap in his line and on his most vulnerable side. Milota’s vengeance will be complete.”

The party still waited until the noise centered in one point. “It is nearly over,” said the old man. From this day Bohemia is dead. She may rise again, but her resurrection will exhibit a melancholy metamorphosis, and I regret to believe that some of my own kindred shall have materially aided in the transformation. Otakar, too, was betrayed by the very power that lured him by deceitful professions to his doom.”

Towards evening the noise died away. A messenger approached the party and ordered the stranger physician, whose name he did not know, to repair at once to headquarters with all the attendants he could procure.

Solomon, Pietro, and the old man and his sons, and the entire group, at once proceeded towards headquarters under the guidance of the messenger. On their way they noticed a large number of men, evidently wounded and some desperately so, lying along the road and under the trees, in all directions. They endeavored to obtain what relief they could by their own efforts; but no thought of any general surgical aid or appliance, or hospital care of any kind, seemed even to have entered their minds. They all lay in one common neglect, so far as any organ-