"O Jesus, Mary!" he exclaimed: "God reward your honor!"
"God be with you!"
"God's grace be with you! Szczytno is before you."
Then he once more bent down to the stirrup and disappeared. Jurand remained on the hill alone and looked in the direction indicated by the peasant, at a grey, moist veil of fog, which concealed the world before him. Behind this fog was hidden that ominous castle, to which he was driven by superior force and misery. It is already near, then, and what must happen, must happen…. As that thought came into Jurand's heart, in addition to his fear and anxiety about Danusia, and his readiness to redeem her from a foe's hands even with his own blood, he experienced a new, exceedingly bitter, and hitherto unknown feeling of humiliation. And now Jurand, at the mere mention of whose name the neighboring counts trembled, was riding to their command with a bowed head. He who had defeated and trampled under foot so many of them, now felt himself defeated and trampled upon. It is true, they had not overcome him in the field with courage and knightly strength, nevertheless he felt himself subdued. And it was to him something so unusual, that it seemed as if the entire order of the world were subverted. He was going to submit himself to the Teutons, he, who would rather meet single-handed the entire Teuton force, if it were not for Danusia's sake. Had it not happened already, that a single knight, having to choose between disgrace and death had attacked whole armies? But he felt that he might meet disgrace, and, at that thought, his heart groaned with agony as a wolf howls when it feels the dart within it.
But he was a man with not only a body, but also a soul, of iron. He knew how to subdue others, he knew also how to subdue himself.
"I will not move," he said to himself, "until I have overcome this anger with which I should rather lose than deliver my child."
And he wrestled with his hard heart, his inveterate hatred and his desire to fight. Whoever had seen him on that hill, in armor, on a gigantic horse, would have said that he was some giant, wrought out of iron, and would not have recognized that that motionless knight at that moment was waging the hottest of all the battles of his life. But he fought with himself until he had entirely overcome and felt that his will would not fail him. Meanwhile the mist thinned, although it did not disappear entirely, but finally something darker loomed through it.
Jurand guessed that these were the walls of the castle of Szczytno. At the sight of it he still did not move from the place, but began to pray so fervidly and ardently as a man prays, when nothing is left for him in the world but God's mercy. And when his horse did finally move, he felt that some sort of confidence was beginning to enter his heart. He was now prepared to suffer everything that could befall him. There came back to his memory Saint George, a descendant of the greatest race in Cappadocia, who suffered various shameful tortures, and nevertheless not only did not lose any honor, but is placed on the right hand of God and appointed patron of all knighthood. Jurand had sometimes heard tales of his exploits from the abbots, who came from distant countries, and now he strengthened his heart with these recollections.
Slowly even, hope began to awaken in him. The Teutons were indeed famous for their desire of revenge, therefore he did not doubt that they would take vengeance on him for all the defeats which he had inflicted upon them, for the disgrace which had fallen upon them after each encounter, and for the dread in which they had lived for so many years.
But that very consideration increased his courage. He thought that they had captured Danusia only in order to get him; therefore of what use would she be to them, after they had gotten him? Yes! They would undoubtedly seize him, and, not daring to keep him near Mazowsze, they would send him to some distant castle, where perhaps he would have to groan until his life's end under ground, but they would liberate Danusia. Even if it should prove that they had got him insidiously and by oppression, neither the grand master nor the assembly would blame them very much for that, because Jurand was actually very hard on the Teutons, and shed more of their blood than did any other knight in the world. But that same grand master would perhaps punish them for the imprisonment of the innocent girl, who was moreover a foster-daughter of the prince, whose favor he was seeking on account of the threatening war with the Polish king.