"Why keep him in the dark concerning them?"
"Because he would keep them to himself."
"What!—He!—Your own brother!—Would he not share the jewels with you, his sister?"
A bitter smile contracted Elwig's lips. She resumed:
"My brother came near cutting off my arm with a blow of his axe a few weeks ago, simply because I merely wished to touch part of his booty."
"Is that the way brothers and sisters behave towards one another among the Franks?"
"Among the Franks," Elwig answered with a face of deepening rancor, "the mother, sister and wives of a warrior are his first slaves."
"His wives!—Has he, then, several?"
"As many as he can capture and feed—the same as he has as many horses as he can buy."
"What! Does not a sacred and eternal union join the husband to the mother of his children, as with us Gauls?—What! Sisters, wives and mothers—all are slaves? Blessed of the gods is Gaul, my own country, where our mothers and wives, venerated by all, proudly take their seat in the nation's councils and where their advice, often wiser than that of their husbands and sons, not infrequently prevails."