The Frankish chief who stood before me was a man of colossal stature. Due to the use of lime-water, his beard as well as his greasy hair, that rose in a knot over his forehead, had turned coppery red. His hair, tied with a leather thong on the top of his head, fell behind his shoulders like the flowing crest of a casque. Above each of his bushy red eyebrows I saw an eagle's talon tattooed in blue, while another scarlet tattoo mark, representing the undulations of a serpent, spanned his forehead. His left cheek was also ornamented with a red and blue tattoo that consisted of transverse rays. On his right cheek, however, the savage ornament disappeared almost wholly in the cavity of a deep scar that began below the eye and was finally lost under his shaggy beard. Heavy and coarsely-wrought gold medals, that hung from and distended his ears, dropped upon his shoulders. A heavy silver chain, wound three times around his neck, reached down to his semi-bare breast. Above his cloth tunic he wore a jacket of some animal's hide. His hose, of the same quality and as soiled as his tunic, were fastened by a leather belt from which, on one side, hung a long sword, on the other an axe of sharp stone. Wide strips of tanned skin criss-crossed upward over his hose, from the ankle to the knees. He leaned upon a short pike that ended in a sharp point. The other kings who accompanied Neroweg were tattooed, clad and armed more or less after the same fashion. The features of all bore the stamp of savage gravity. Elwig, who remained on her knees at my side, sought to conceal her face from Neroweg. He rudely touched his sister's shoulder with the point of his pike, and addressed her harshly: "Why did you send for me before boiling the Gallic dog for your auguries? My flayers have promised me his skin." "The hour is not favorable," answered the priestess abruptly with a mysterious air. "The hour of night--of dark night is preferable to sacrifice to the gods of the nether world. The Gaul, moreover, says, oh mighty king, that he has a message from Victoria and her son." Neroweg drew nearer and looked at me. At first his mien was one of disdainful indifference; presently, however, as he examined me more attentively, his features assumed an expression of hatred and of triumphant rage; at last he cried as if he could not believe his own eyes: "It is he! He is the horseman of the bay steed! It is himself!" "Do you know him?" Elwig asked her brother. "Do you know this prisoner?" "Off with you!" was Neroweg's brusque answer. "Get you gone!" He then proceeded to contemplate me with renewed interest and repeated: "Yes, it is he; the horseman of the bay steed!" "Did you ever meet him in battle?" again asked Elwig. "Answer me. Do answer me!" "Will you be gone!" repeated Neroweg now raising his pike over the head of the priestess. "I told you before, be gone!"