"It is I!" I cried to them. "It is I, Schanvoch!"
The door was no sooner opened than my wife, seeing me by the light that Sampso held in her hand, threw herself into my arms, saying in a tone of sweet and tender reproach:
"At last you are back! We began to feel alarmed about you, seeing you were gone since early morning."
"And we, who counted upon you for our little feast," put in Sampso; "but I suppose you met with old comrades in arms, and time passed quickly in their company."
"Yes, I suppose the conversation was strung out over battles," added Ellen still hanging on my neck, "and my dear Schanvoch forgot his wife, just a little—"
Ellen was interrupted by a cry from Sampso. She did not at first notice Elwig, who had remained in shadow near the door. At the sight, however, of the savage creature—pale, sinister and motionless—my wife's sister could not repress her surprise and involuntary fear. Ellen quickly stepped back, noticed the presence of the priestess, and gazing at me as much surprised as her sister, said:
"Schanvoch, who is that woman?"
"Why, sister," cried Sampso forgetting the presence of Elwig and looking at me more closely, "look, the sleeves of Schanvoch's blouse are red with blood—he is wounded!"
My wife grew pale, stepped quickly back to me and anxiously scanned my face.
"Calm yourself," I answered; "my wounds are slight. I concealed from you both the mission on which I was bound. I went to the camp of the Franks, our savage foes. I carried a message from Victoria."