The cold, I should almost say naïve, ferocity of the woman redoubled the disgust that the monster inspired in me. Again I remained silent, and she cried aloud: "Why do you not answer me? You promised me the jewels!" But seeming to be suddenly struck by a new thought she added with terror: "I told him all! Suppose he tells it all again to Neroweg! My brother would kill us both, me and Riowag! The thought of the treasure bereft me of my senses!" And again she started to call, turning her face towards the cavern. A second old hag, no less hideous than the first, hobbled out holding in her hand the bone of an ox from which hung a partly boiled shred of meat at which she gnawed with her toothless gums. "Come quick to me," the priestess said to her, "and leave your bone there." The old hag obeyed unwillingly, grumbling like a dog whose meat is taken away from him. She laid the bone on one of the projecting rocks at the entrance of the grotto, and drew near, wiping her lips. "Gather some dry, good branches and roots of trees and kindle a fire with them under the brass caldron," the priestess said to the old woman. The latter returned into the cavern, and brought out all the things that she was ordered. Soon a bright fire burned under the caldron. "Now," Elwig said to the old woman, pointing her finger at me as I lay stretched out upon the earth at the feet of the statue of the subterranean deity, with my hands pinioned behind my back and my feet bound fast, "kneel down upon him." I could make not the slightest motion. The old hag planted herself on her knees upon my breast-plate, and said to the priestess: "What must I do next?" "Make him put out his tongue." I then understood that, carried away at first by her savage greed into making dangerous confidences to me, Elwig now reproached herself for having heedlessly mentioned her amours and her fratricidal intentions, and could think of no better way to compel my silence on these subjects towards her brother than to cut off my tongue. The project was more easily conceived than it could be executed. I clenched my teeth with all my might. "Tighten your fingers on his throat!" Elwig commanded the hag. "He will then open his mouth and stick his tongue out. I shall then cut it off."