Elwig leaped to her feet with one bound, hurled her knife away, clapped her hands, and emitted loud peals of laughter that sounded like a crazy woman's transports. Thereupon she crouched down again beside me, and said in a voice broken with childish breathlessness: "Presents? You bring presents with you?--Where are they?" "Yes, I bring with me presents fit to dazzle an empress--gold necklaces studded with carbuncles, ear pendants of pearls and rubies, gold bracelets, belts and crowns that are so loaded with precious stones that they glitter in all the colors of the rainbow.--All these masterpieces of our most skilled Gallic goldsmiths I have brought with me for presents.--And seeing that your brother Neroweg, the Terrible Eagle, is the most powerful king of all your hordes, the bulk of all those riches--those bracelets, those necklaces and other jewels--would have fallen to you." Elwig listened to me open-mouthed, her hands clasped together, without endeavoring to hide either the admiration or unbridled greed that the enumeration of such treasures kindled in her breast. Suddenly, however, her features assumed an expression of mingled doubt and anger. She rose, ran to her knife, and returning with it in her hands, raised it over me crying: "You either lie, or you are mocking me!--Where are those treasures?" "In a safe place.--I foresaw that I might be killed and plundered before I was able to fulfil the orders of Victoria and her son." "Where did you put that treasure in safety?" "It remained in the bark that brought me to this side of the river.--My companions rowed back from the shore and cast anchor beyond the reach of the arrows of your hordes." "We also have barks moored at the other end of the camp. I shall order your companions to be pursued--I shall have the treasures!" "You deceive yourself!--As soon as my companions see the enemy's barks approach from a distance, they will suspect foul play. Seeing that they have a long lead, they will be able to regain the opposite shore of the Rhine without any danger whatever.--Such will be the only fruit of the treachery practiced by your people upon me.--Come, woman! Have me boiled for your infernal auguries! Perhaps my bones, bleached in your caldron, may be transformed into magnificent ornaments!" "I want the treasures!" replied Elwig struggling against her lingering suspicions. "Since you did not carry the jewels about you, when would you have given them to the kings of our hordes?" "When I left the jewels in the bark I expected I would be received as an envoy of peace, and that as such I would be escorted back to the river bank. My companions would then have returned to the shore to receive me, and I would have taken the presents out of the bark and distributed them among the kings in the name of Victoria and her son."