her then, when he was not sure but they had taken her away from him.
It came also to his head that surely she had been married in spite of her; hence at heart, he did not blame Danusia, especially since, being a child, she could not have her own will yet. But in soul he was angry at Yurand and Princess Anna, and when he thought of Danusia' s husband his heart rose to his throat, and he looked around threateningly on his attendants who carried his armor under a covering. He settled too, with himself, that he would not cease to serve her, and that though he might find her the wife of another he would lay the peacock-plumes down at her feet. But there was more grief in that thought than solace, for he knew not what he could begin to do afterward. Nothing consoled him save the thought of a great war. Though he had no wish to live without Danusia, he did not promise to perish surely, but he felt that somehow his spirit and his memory would be so diverted during war that he would be free of all other cares and vexations. And a great war was hanging in the air, as it were. It was unknown whence news of it had come, for peace reigned between the king and the Order; still in all places whithersoever Zbyshko went, men spoke on no other subject. People had, as it were, a foreboding that it must come, and some men said openly: "Why did we unite with Lithuania, unless against those wolves, the Knights of the Cross? We must finish with them once and forever, so that they may be rending our entrails no longer." But others said: "Mad monks! Plovtse did not suffice them! death is hanging over them, and still they seized Dobryn, which they must vomit up with their blood." And throughout all territories of the kingdom people without boasting prepared seriously, as is usual in a life-and-death struggle, with the deep determination of strong men who had endured injustice too long and were making ready at last to mete out dreadful punishment. In all houses Zbyshko met men who were convinced that the need might come any day to sit on horseback; and he was astonished, for though thinking, as well as others, that war must come, he had not heard that it would begin so soon. It had not occurred to him that the desire of people had anticipated events that time. He believed others, not himself, and was rejoiced in heart at sight of that hurry preceding conflict which he met everywhere. In all places all other anxieties gave way to anxiety about a horse and
