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THE KNIGHTS OF THE CROSS.
and holy relics that the mind draws back before them in terror. The whole army also thought of these relics with fear. Not spears, nor swords, nor axes did the Poles dread chiefly, but those holy relics. "How raise a hand on the Grand Master?" asked knights who knew no fear, "if on his armor he bears a reliquary, and in it the bones of saints and the wood of the cross of the Saviour."
Vitold was burning for war, it is true; he urged to it and he hurried to the battle, but the pious heart of the king became cowardly when he thought of those heavenly powers with which the Order had shielded its injustice.
