"If you do not wish to die, write to Victoria to come to our camp ornamented with her most precious jewels. She shall repair alone to a place that I shall designate to you--a secluded spot that I know--I shall come for her and shall lead her to my brother to solicit your life from him--" "Victoria to come alone to this camp?--I have come hither, relying upon the sacredness of the truce;--I carried the bough of peace in my hand, and yet one of my companions was killed, another was wounded, and to cap the climax of treachery, I am delivered to you bound hand and foot to be put to death--" "Victoria may bring a small escort with her." "Which would be unquestionably massacred by your men!--The scheme is too transparent!" "You, then, wish to die!" cried the priestess gnashing her teeth in actual or simulated rage, and threatening me with her knife. "The fire will be shortly kindled under the caldron.--I shall have you plunged alive into the magic water, and you shall boil in it until you are dead.--Once more, and for the last time, make your choice.--Either you shall die in tortures, or you will write to Victoria to repair to our camp decked in her richest ornaments!--Choose!" she added with redoubled fury and again threatening me with her knife. "Choose--or you die!" I knew there was no more thievish, covetous or vainglorious race than this breed of Franks. I noticed that Elwig's large grey eyes glistened with cupidity every time she mentioned the magnificent ornaments, that, as she imagined, the Mother of the Camps surely possessed. The ridiculous accoutrement of the priestess; the profusion of valueless gewgaws that she wore with a savage woman's coquetry, in order, no doubt, to appear pleasing to the eye of Riowag, the captain of the black warriors; above all, her persistence in demanding of me that Victoria come to the Frankish camp covered with rich jewels;--everything justified the conclusion that Elwig aimed at drawing my foster-sister into an ambush in order to slay her and rob her of her jewels. The clumsy scheme did not do credit to the ingenuity of the priestess of the nether regions. Nevertheless, her cupidity might be turned to my service. I answered her in a tone of indifference: "Woman, you mean to kill me if I do not induce Victoria to come here? You are free to kill me--boil my flesh and bones--you will thereby lose more than you think for, seeing that you are the sister of Neroweg, the Terrible Eagle, one of the greatest kings of all your hordes!" "What would I lose?--" "Magnificent Gallic ornaments!" "Ornaments!--What ornaments?" cried Elwig doubtfully, although her eyes snapped with greed. "Do you imagine that, in sending her foster-brother to convey a message to the kings of the Franks, Victoria the Great did not prepare, as a pledge of truce, rich presents for the wives and sisters who accompany them, and for those whom they left behind in Germany?"