"Suppose you make a vow to the Lord Jesus himself?"
"Of course he is over all of them. But suppose your father had injured my servant, and I went to Krakow to complain to the king; what would the king tell me? He would say thus: 'I am monarch over all the country, and you complain to me about one of your peasants! Do you not have my officials in your part of the country; why did you not go to the castellan?' So the Lord Jesus is the ruler over the whole universe; but for smaller affairs, he employs the saints."
"Then I will tell you what to do," said Zbyszko, who entered just now; "make a vow to our late queen, that if she intercede for you, you will make a pilgrimage to Krakow. Why should you search after strange saints, when we have our own lady, who is better than they?"
"Bah! if I only knew that she would intercede for wounds!"
"No matter! There is no saint who would dare to show her an angry face; or if he dared, Lord God would punish him for it, because she was not an ordinary woman, but a Polish queen."
"Who converted the last heathen country to the Christian faith! That is right," said Macko. "She must have a high place in God's council and surely none would dare to oppose her. Therefore I will do as you say."
This advice pleased Jagienka, who admired Zbyszko's common sense very much. That same evening, Macko made a vow and drank with still greater hope, the bear's grease. But after a week, he began to lose hope. He said that the grease was fermenting in his stomach, and that a lump was growing on his side near the last rib. At the end of ten days Macko was worse, and the lump grew larger and became inflamed. The sick man again had fever and began to make preparations for death.
But one night he awakened Zbyszko, and said:
"Light a piece of resinous wood; there is something the matter with me, but I do not know what."
Zbyszko jumped up and lighted a piece of pine wood.
"What is it! Something has pierced the lump on my side. It must be the head of the spear! I had hold of it, but I cannot pull it out."
"It must be the spearhead! Nothing else. Grasp it well and pull."
Macko began to turn and to twist with pain; but he pushed his fingers deeper and deeper, until he seized a hard substance which finally he pulled out.