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THE KNIGHTS OF THE CROSS.
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they thought if there was noise they would have to send a large part to Malborg, or give those Von Badens all thou didst remit to them. So he sent only two guards to take me,—one a confidential man at arms, who had to row with me on the Drventsa, and some kind of scribe. Since they wished no one to see us, they sent us at nightfall, and ye know that the boundary is near by there. They gave me an oar of oak—well—and God's favor, for here I am in Plotsk."

"I know, but did not the others return?" called out Zbyshko.

A savage smile lighted Tolima's face.

"The Drventsa flows always into the Vistula," said he. "How could they return against the current? The Knights of the Cross will find them perhaps in Torun."

After a while he added, turning to Zbyshko,—

"The comtur of Lubav took from me a part of the money, but that which I hid when attacked I recovered, and have given it, lord, to thy attendant for keeping; he lives in the castle with the prince, and it is safer in his hands than with me in the inn here."

"Then is my attendant in Plotsk? What is he doing?" inquired Zbyshko, with wonder.

"He, after bringing Siegfried, went away with that young lady who was at Spyhov and is now in waiting on the princess here. As I told thee."

But Zbyshko, dazed by his grief for Danusia, had not inquired and knew nothing. Now he remembered that Hlava had been sent away in advance with Siegfried; and while recalling this his heart was straitened with sorrow, and with desire for vengeance.

"True," said he. "But where is that executioner? What has happened to him?"

"Did not Father Kaleb tell? Siegfried hanged himself, and you have passed his grave in coming hither."

A moment of silence followed.

"Hlava said that he was going to you, and he would have gone long ago, but he was forced to guard the young lady, who fell ill here after coming from Spyhov."

"What young lady?" inquired Zbyshko, shaking himself out of painful remembrances, as if out of a dream.

"Why, that one, your sister or kinswoman who came with the knight Matsko to Spyhov in a man's dress, and found our lord groping along on the highway. Without her, neither the knight Matsko nor your attendant would have recog-