His tender feelings entirely subdued him. First he began to look at the arms, swords and axes which had become blackened by the smoke, as though considering which to take with him, and which to leave behind; then he left the house; first, because he could not stay there; secondly, to give orders to prepare the carriage and give the horses double provender.
In the courtyard where it was already beginning to grow dark, he remembered Jagienka, who only a moment ago sat here on horseback, and he again became uneasy.
"I must go," he said to himself, "but who is going to protect the girl against Cztan and Wilk. May thunder strike them."
But Jagienka was on the road with her little brother, Jasko, crossing the woods leading to Zgorzelice, and the Bohemian accompanied them in silence, with love and grief in his heart. A moment since he saw her tears, now he looked at her dark form, scarcely visible in the darkness of the forest, and he guessed her sorrow and pain. It also seemed to him that at any moment Wilk or Cztan's rapacious hands might dart from the dark thicket and grasp her, and at that thought, he was carried away by wild anger and longed for a fight. At times the desire for fight was so intense that he wanted to grasp his axe or sword and cut down a pine tree on the road. He felt that a good fight would comfort him. Lastly he would be glad, even if he could let the horse go at a gallop. But he could not do it, they rode silently in front of him, and at a very slow gait, foot by foot, and little Jasko, who was of a talkative disposition, after several attempts to engage his sister in conversation, seeing that she was unwilling to speak, desisted, and also sank into deep silence.
But when they were approaching Zgorzelice, the sorrow in the Bohemian's heart turned to anger against Cztan and Wilk: "I would not spare even my blood in your behalf," he said to himself, "provided it comforted you. But what can I, unfortunate, do? What can I tell you? Unless I tell you that he ordered me to kneel before you. And, God grant that that might be of some comfort to you."
Thinking thus, he urged his horse close to Jagienka's.
"Gracious lady...."
"Are you riding with us?" enquired Jagienka, as though awaking from sleep. "What do you say?"
"I forgot to tell you what my master commanded me to say to you. When I was about to depart from Spychow, he called me and said 'I bow at the feet of the young lady of Zgorzelice, for whether in good or bad fortune, I shall never forget her; and for what she did for my uncle and myself, may God recompense her, and keep her in good health.'"