"Oh! Schanvoch! If you heard Kidda sing and dance, accompanying herself with a tambourine--Oh! If you heard and saw her you would become as crazily in love with her as I am! But," added the young general breaking off the thread of his delighted description, and pointing ahead of him, "look at yonder torches! Heaven be praised! It is my mother! In her anxiety to know the issue of the day she must have ridden out towards the battle field! Oh, Schanvoch! I am young, impetuous, ardent after pleasures, that never leave me. I enjoy them with the delight of intoxication--and yet, I swear to you by my father's sword, I would exchange all my future pleasures for the happiness that I am about to experience when my mother will press me to her heart!" Saying this, the young general gave the reins to his horse and without waiting for me rode forward to meet Victoria, who was, indeed, approaching. When I reached the group, they had both alighted. Victoria held Victorin in a close embrace, and was saying to him in accents impossible to describe: "My son, I am a happy mother!" It was only then that I perceived by the light of the torches of Victoria's escort that her right hand was bandaged. Victorin inquired with anxiety: "Are you wounded, mother?" "Only slightly," answered Victoria. And addressing me she extended her hand affectionately, saying: "Brother, you are with us! My heart overflows with joy!" "But who gave you the wound?" "The Frankish woman whom Ellen and Sampso brought to my house after your departure--" "Elwig!" I cried horrified. "Oh! The accursed creature! She has approved herself worthy of her race!" "Schanvoch," Victoria said to me gravely, "we must not curse the dead. She whom you call Elwig lives no more--" "Mother!" cried Victorin with increased anxiety. "Dear mother! Are you certain the wound is slight?" "Here, my son; I shall let you see it!" And in order to reassure Victorin, she unwound the bandage in which her right hand was wrapped. "You can see for yourself," she added. "I cut myself only in two places in the palm of my hand as I sought to disarm the woman." Indeed, the wounds that my foster-sister exhibited were two long but by no means deep cuts. They were in no respect serious. "And Elwig was armed?" I inquired, seeking to recollect the events of the previous evening. "Where could she have found a weapon? Unless last evening, before starting to swim after us, she picked up her knife from the beach and hid it under her clothes." "And how and when did the woman try to stab you, mother? Were you alone with her?"