The Knights of the Cross

"I have sacrificed myself for the child," repeated Jurand to himself.

And he waited. Noontime arrived, the walls were deserted, because the retainers were called to dinner. A few, those that had to be on guard, ate their meal on the wall, and, after having eaten, entertained themselves with throwing the picked bones at the hungry knight. They also began to tease and question each other who would dare to descend and strike him with the fist in the neck, or with the handle of the lance. Others, returning from their meal, called to him that if he disliked waiting he could hang himself, because there was a vacant hook on the gallows with a ready rope. And amidst such mockery, cries, bursts of laughter and cursing, the afternoon hours passed. The short wintry day gradually drew toward evening, and the drawbridge was still up and the gate remained closed.

But toward evening a wind arose, dispersed the mist, cleared the sky and revealed the sunset glow.

The snow became dark-blue, and then violet. There was no frost, but the night promised to be fair. The walls were again deserted by all but the guard; the rooks and crows departed from the gallows to the forests. Finally the sky darkened and complete silence followed.

"They will not open the gate before nightfall," thought Jurand.

And for a moment he thought to return to the city, but he soon gave up that idea. "They want me to stand here," he said to himself. "If I return, they will certainly not let me go home, but surround and capture me, and then they will say that they owe me nothing, because they took me by force, and if I should ride over them, even then I must return...."

The great endurance of the Polish knights for cold, hunger and hardships, so admired by foreign chroniclers, frequently enabled them to perform deeds which the less hardy people from the west could not undertake. Jurand possessed that endurance to a still greater degree than others; therefore, although hunger had long since began to gripe him, and the evening frost penetrated his fur, which was covered with iron plates, he determined to wait, even if he had to die before this gate.

But suddenly, before it became entirely dark, he heard behind him the sound of footsteps in the snow.

He looked back: there were coming toward him, from the direction of the city, six men, armed with lances and halberds; in their midst walked a seventh man supporting himself on a weapon.

"They will perhaps open the gate for them and then I shall ride in with them," thought Jurand. "They will not try to take me by force, nor kill me, because there are too few; should they attack me, however, it will prove that they do not mean to keep their promise, and then--woe to them!"