"How could I sleep, when I was watching you?"
"Then lie down for a while. When we arrive, I will awaken you."
"What else can it be, if not love? I have pain in my heart; but I will ride on horseback for a while, that will help me."
He got down from the wagon, and mounted the horse, which his servant brought for him; meanwhile, Macko touched his sore side; but he was evidently thinking about something else and not about his illness, because he tossed his head, smacked his lips and finally said:
"I wonder and wonder, and I cannot wonder enough, why you are so eager for love, because your father was not that way, and neither am I."
But Zbyszko, instead of answering, stretched himself on the saddle, put his hands on his hips, gave his head a toss and sang:
"I cried the whole night, cried in the morning, Where have you been, my sweet girl, my darling! It will not help me, if I mourn for thee, Because I am quite sure, you will not see me."
This "hej" resounded in the forest, reverberated against the trunks of the trees, finally reëchoed in the far distance and then was lost in the thickets.
Again Macko felt his side, in which the German spearhead had lodged and said, moaning a little:
Then he became thoughtful, as if recollecting the old times; and he added:
"Although even then some of them were stupid also."
But, in the meantime, they emerged from the forest, behind which they perceived the miners' sheds, and further walls, built by King Kazimierz, and the tower of the _fara_ erected by Wladyslaw Lokietek.
The canon of the _fara_ beard Macko's confession and offered them hospitality; they remained there over night, and started the next morning. Beyond Olkusk, they turned toward Szlonsk,[66] and on its boundaries, they proposed to ride toward Wielkopolska. The road was laid out through a large forest, in which there was heard toward sunset, the roaring of the urus and of the bison, and during the night the eyes of wolves were seen shining behind the thick hazelnut trees. But the greatest danger which threatened the traveler on this road, was from the German and Germanized knights of Szlonsk, whose castles were erected here and there near the boundaries. It is true, that because of the war with the Opolczyk, Naderspraw, whom the Silesians were helping against King Wladyslaw, the majority of these castles had been destroyed by Polish hands; it was necessary, however, to be watchful, and especially after sunset, and to have one's weapons ready.