Palpitating with cupidity, Elwig made no answer to me, and resumed the thread of her dominant thoughts.
"You will, accordingly, not mention the jewels to Neroweg. He would keep them all for himself. You will wait until it is dark to leave the camp. I shall accompany you. You will give me the jewels, all the presents—to me alone!"
And again bursting into almost insane peals of laughter, she added:
"Gold bracelets! Necklaces of pearls! Ear pendants studded with rubies! Diadems full of precious stones! I shall look grand as an empress! Oh, how beautiful I shall be in the eye of Riowag!"
Elwig thereupon cast disdainful glances at the copper bracelets that she rattled as she shook her arms, and repeated:
"I shall look very beautiful to Riowag!"
"Woman," I said to her, "your advice is prudent. We shall have to wait until it is night for us to leave the camp together and regain the river bank."
And, to the end of still further enlisting Elwig's confidence in me by seeming to take an interest in her vainglorious greed, I added:
"But if your brother sees you decked with such magnificent ornaments, will he not take them away from you?"
"No," she promptly answered with a strange and sinister look. "No, he will not take them!"