The people told dreadful tales about Spychow: they said that the path leading to it through the quaggy marshes which were overgrown with duck weed and had bottomless depths, was so narrow that two men on horseback could not ride abreast; that on each side there were many Germans’ bones, and that during the night, the heads of drowned men were seen walking on spiders’ legs, howling and drawing travelers on horses into the depths. They also said that the gate in the grodek was ornamented with skeletons. These stories were not true. But in the barred pits dug under the house in Spychow, there were always many groaning prisoners; and Jurand’s name was more dreadful than those tales about the skeletons and drowned people.
Zbyszko having learned of Jurand’s arrival, hastened to him, but with a
