"'Yes,' answered the husband; 'I doubt—I want to be certain.'
"'Then, be it so,' said she.
"Thereupon, himself taking the buckler where the little child lay, smiling and stretching out its chubby arms to him, Vindorix walked into the river up to his waist, raised the buckler and child for a moment over his head, and looked back a last time towards his wife, as if to threaten her with what he was about to do. With her forehead high and a steady countenance, Albrege remained erect at the river bank, motionless like a statue, her arms crossed upon her bosom. When her husband now turned to her she stretched out her right hand towards him as if to say:
"'Do it!'
"At that moment a shudder ran over the crowd. Vindorix deposited upon the stream the buckler on which lay the child, and in that frail craft left the infant to the mercy of the eddies."
"Oh, the wicked man!" cried Mamm' Margarid deeply moved by the story as were the other hearers. "And his wife!... his wife ... who remained on the bank?—"
"But what was the reason of such a barbarity, friend guest?" asked Henory, the young wife of Guilhern embracing her two children, little Sylvest and little Syomara, both of whom she took on her knees as if fearing to see them exposed to a similar danger.
With a gesture the stranger put an end to the interrogatories, and proceeded:
"The stream had barely carried away the buckler on which the child lay, than the father raised both his trembling hands to heaven as if to invoke the gods. He followed the course of the buckler with sullen anxiety, leaning, despite himself, to the right when the buckler dipped to the right, and to the left when the buckler dipped on that side. The mother, on the contrary, her arms crossed over her bosom, followed the buckler with firm eyes, and as tranquil as if she had nothing to fear for her child."
"Nothing to fear!" cried Guilhern. "To see her child thus exposed to almost certain death ... it is bound to go under...."