The Knights of the Cross/Volume 2/Chapter 68
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CHAPTER LXVIII. Next day came the moment of Zbyshko's departure. He was sitting high on a large war-horse, and his friends had surrounded him. Yagenka, standing near the stirrup, raised her sad blue eyes to the young man in silence, as if wishing to look at him sufficiently before parting. Matsko and Father Kaleb were at the other stirrup, and near them stood Hlava and Anulka. Zbyshko turned his face first toward one side, then toward the other, exchanging such brief words as are said usually before a long journey: "Be well!" "May God conduct thee!" "It is time!" "Hei! it is time! it is time!" He had taken farewell before of all, and of Yagenka, at whose feet he had fallen in giving thanks for her goodness. But now, as he looked at her from his lofty saddle, he wished to say some new heartfelt word, since her uplifted eyes and face said to him so expressively, "Come back!" that the heart rose in him with palpable gratitude. And as if responding to her unspoken eloquence he said,— "Yagus, to thee as to my own sister Thou knowest!— I will say no more!" "I know. God reward thee." "And remember uncle." "And do thou remember—" "I shall return, be sure of that, unless I perish." "Do not perish." Once already, in Plotsk, when he had mentioned this expedition, she said the same words to him, "Do not perish;" but this time these words came from profounder depths of her spirit, and, perhaps to hide her tears, she bent the same moment, so that her forehead touched Zbyshko's knee for an instant. Meanwhile the mounted attendants at the gate, who were holding pack-horses ready now for the road, began to sing: "The ring will not be lost; the golden ring "To the road!" called out Zbyshko. "To the road." "God conduct thee! The Most Holy Mother!" Hoofs resounded on the wooden drawbridge, one of the horses gave a prolonged neigh, others snorted loudly, and the party moved on. But Yagenka, Matsko, Father Kaleb, Tolima, and Hlava, with his wife and the servants who remained in Spyhov, went out on the bridge and looked after them as they departed. Father Kaleb continued making the sign of the cross after them for a long time, till at last they disappeared beyond an alder thicket. "Under that banner no evil fate will strike them," said he. "True, but it is of good omen also that their horses gave tremendous snorts," added Matsko. But neither did he remain long at Spyhov. In a fortnight the old knight finished arrangements with Hlava, who took the estate as a tenant. Matsko, at the head of a long row of wagons surrounded by armed attendants, set out with Yagenka toward Bogdanets. Father Kaleb and old Tolima looked at those wagons without entire satisfaction, for in truth Matsko had stripped Spyhov to some extent, but since Zbyshko had left all things to his management no one dared oppose him. He would have taken still more had he not been restrained by Yagenka, with whom he disputed, it is true, being astonished at her "woman's reasons," but still he obeyed her in almost everything. They did not take Danusia's coffin, however, for as Spyhov was not sold, Zbyshko preferred that she should remain there with her fathers. They took a large stock of money and wealth of various sorts, captured for the greatest part from Germans in battles fought by Yurand. So Matsko, as he looked at the laden wagons covered with matting, was delighted in soul at the thought of how he would strengthen and arrange Bogdanets. His delight was poisoned, however, by the fear that Zbyshko might fall, but knowing the knightly skill of the young man he did not lose hope that he would return in safety, and he thought of this with rapture. 'Perhaps God wished," said he to himself, "that Zbyshko should obtain Spyhov first, then Mochydoly, and all that remained after the abbot. Let him only come back, I will build him a worthy castle in Bogdanets; and then we shall see!" Here it occurred to him that Stan and Vilk would to a certainty not receive him with superfluous delight, and that perhaps he would have to fight them; but he had no fear of this, just as an old war-horse feels no fear when he must go to battle. His health had returned; he felt strength in his bones, and knew that he would manage easily those quarrellers who were dangerous, it may be, but without knightly training. He said something different, it is true, a short time before, to Zbyshko, but he said it only to restrain that young man from going. "Hei! I am a pike, and they are gudgeons," thought he; "they would better not come near me head foremost." But something else alarmed him immediately: "God knows when Zbyshko will come back; meanwhile he looks on Yagenka only as a sister. Now does not the girl look at him also as a brother, and will she wait for his uncertain return?" So he looked at her and said,— "Listen to me, Yagna: I will not talk of Stan and Vilk, for they are uncouth peasants, and not for thee. Thou art now a court lady! But as thy years—my late friend, Zyh, told me that the will of God was on thee then, and that was some time ago. For I know—they say, that when a girl feels the garland too tight on her head she seeks some one to remove it. It is to be understood that neither Stan nor Vilk—but what dost thou notice?" "Of what are you inquiring?" asked Yagenka. "Wouldst thou marry no man?" "I? I shall be a nun." "Do not say anything frivolous! But if Zbyshko comes back?" She shook her head. "I shall be a nun." "But if he should love thee? If he should beg, and beg terribly?" The girl turned her blushing face toward the field; but the wind, which was blowing from the field just then, brought to Matsko the low-voiced answer,— "I would not be a nun."
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