"Riowag, do you want to deliver the Gaul to the priestess Elwig?" "Yes," answered the chief; "yes, I want to, and it shall be done as I order!" "And the rest of you," proceeded the conciliatory black warrior, "you wish to offer the Gaul's skin to the chief Neroweg?" "That is what we propose to do!" "Very well, you can be accommodated, both." A profound silence fell all around at these conciliatory words. The black warrior proceeded: "First, flay him alive, you will then have his skin; after that Elwig will boil his body in her caldron." The compromise seemed at first to satisfy both parties, but Riowag, the captain of the band, objected: "Do you not know that Elwig needs a living prisoner to render her auguries certain? You would be giving her only a corpse if you first flay the Gaul." And he added in a terrific voice: "Would you expose yourselves to the anger of the gods of the nether world by depriving them of a victim?" At this threat a shudder ran through the surrounding black warriors, and the party that demanded my skin seemed about to yield to a superstitious terror. The peacemaker, the warrior who had proposed that I be first flayed and then boiled, now spoke again: "Some of you wish to present the Gaul as an offering to the great Neroweg, others of you wish to present him to the priestess Elwig. Now do you not see that to give to the one is to give to the other also? Is not Elwig Neroweg's sister?" "And he would be the first to surrender the Gaul to the gods of the nether world, in order to render them propitious to our arms!" put in Riowag. The captain of the black warriors pointed thereupon at me, and added imperiously: "Take the Gaul on your shoulders and follow me!" "We want to have his spoils," said one of the black warriors who were the first to seize me. "We want his casque, his cuirass, his blouse, his belt, his shirt. We want everything, down to his shoes!" "The booty belongs to you," answered Riowag. "You will have it so soon as Elwig will have stripped the Gaul preparatorily to throwing him into her caldron." "We shall go with you, Riowag," replied the black warriors who made the arrest, "otherwise others than ourselves will take possession of the plunder from the Gaul." My perplexity was now at an end. I knew my fate. I was to be boiled alive. I would have gladly looked a useful or brave death in the face; but the death that awaited me seemed so barren and absurd, that I decided to make one more effort to save my life. Addressing the captain of the black warriors, I said: