"Try it! You will find me unshakeable!"
Neroweg ordered one of the other kings to fetch a firebrand from under the brass caldron. I was held down by the shoulders and feet, so as to prevent me from making the slightest motion, while the Terrible Eagle placed the firebrand upon my iron cuirass and heaped up others about it. The brasier that he thus built upon my body seemed to amuse him greatly. He laughed out aloud and said to me:
"You shall speak, or be broiled like a tortoise in its shell."
The iron of my cuirass soon began to heat under the coals which two of the Frankish kings kept alive by blowing upon them. I suffered greatly and cried:
"Oh! Neroweg! Neroweg! Cowardly assassin! I would gladly endure these tortures, if I only could see myself once more sword in hand before you, and put my mark upon your other cheek. Oh! You have said it—there is room only for hatred and death between our two races!"
"What is Victoria's message?" the Terrible Eagle asked again.
I remained silent, despite the intense pain that I suffered. The iron of my cuirass was growing hot all around.
"Will you speak?" the Frankish chief cried anew, evidently astonished at my resistance.
"Victoria's messenger speaks erect and free," I answered. "If not, not!"
Whether the Frankish chief considered it desirable to know the message that I brought, or whether he only yielded to the suggestions of his companions, who were less ferocious than himself, one of them unbuckled my casque, raised it off my head, took it to the stream that rippled down the rocks at the mouth of the cavern, filled it and poured the cold water upon my heated cuirass. By degrees it cooled off.