CHAPTER XX.
Meanwhile the Cheh flew with all speed straightway to the hunting-house, and finding the prince there, told him first of all what had happened. Fortunately there were courtiers who had seen that the Cheh had ridden out without weapons. One of them had even called on the road to him, half jestingly, to take some kind of iron, or the Germans would beat him. He, fearing lest the Germans might pass the boundary, had sprung to his horse in his jacket, and rushed after them. These testimonies scattered all doubts of the prince as to who could have murdered De Fourcy; but it filled him with alarm and such anger that in the first moment he wished to send pursuit after the Germans, so as to convey them in chains to the Grand Master for punishment. After a while, however, he saw himself that pursuit could not reach the knights before the boundary, and he said,—
"Still, I will send a letter to the Master and inform him what they are doing here. Evil has begun in the Order; formerly obedience was absolute, now any comtur does what he pleases. God grant that after offence will come punishment."
He thought a while and then said to the courtiers,—
"I cannot understand why they killed a guest, and were it not that the young man went without weapons, I should suspect him."
"You might," said the priest; "but what wish could he have to kill a man whom he had never seen before, and then, if he had weapons, how was he, one man, to attack five, and their armed escort in addition?"
"You speak truth," said the prince. "It must be that that guest opposed them in something, or that he would not lie as they wished; even here I noticed that they winked at him to say that Yurand was the first to begin."
"The Cheh is a gallant fellow," said Mrokota, "if he has crushed the paw of that dog of a Danveld."
"He says that he heard the bones break in the German," answered the prince; "and noticing how he fought in the forest that may well be. It is clear that both servant and master are doughty fellows. Had it not been for Zbyshko
