“Hey! You can talk, can you?” cried Siegfried. “Being so wise, you should be able to teach me how to fear. I have come for that.”
Fafner laughed, and showed his teeth, bidding the boy come and be eaten.
“I come, growler!” said the young Volsung; and, drawing his sword, he sprang boldly at the great, hideous creature at the cave’s opening. Fafner reared to receive him, and the combat began. It was fierce, but not very long, for the boy was strong and Nothung was sharp, and soon Alberich’s spell had again worked its misery; and, indeed, it could be said of the dying Dragon that his death was sad—his life had been a failure.
Before he died he told Siegfried to beware of Mime, and then spoke slowly and sadly of the race of giants that had come to an end.
“Siegfried,” he began once more—but he never finished, poor old Dragon; for, just at the word, he rolled over and died. And that was the end of the race of giants.
Stooping down, the young warrior drew his sword from out the Dragon’s heart. In so doing, a drop of blood fell on his hand. It burned like the cruellest fire. He raised it quickly to his mouth to relieve the smarting; and, as the blood touched his lips, a strange thing happened—he could understand the language of birds. Yes, as the same little singer that he had heard before began to twitter, he could understand what it was saying to him.
“Hey! Siegfried will have now the Nibelung’s hoard! He will find the hoard in the hole. The Tarnhelm would aid him through wonderful deeds; but the Ring would give him might over the world.”
With a laugh and a word of thanks to the little singer, the boy stepped into the cave to look for the treasure. At the same minute Mime crept near from behind the clump of bushes. Alberich sprang out from his rocky crevice, and the two little Nibelungs met, snarling, capering, and making faces with rage.
Each claimed the Ring, and called the other names, and each proved himself a marvel in wickedness and greed, and they were nearing a point when blows were not far off when the hero himself stepped out from the cave with the Tarnhelm thrust into his belt, and the Rhinegold Ring upon his finger. The dwarfs hastened out of sight.
The heaped-up hoard of the Nibelungs, Siegfried had left, for he knew little of its use, and he cared nothing for wealth. Indeed, both Helm and Ring he had taken only because the bird had so advised him. He could not fancy what good either of them would do him.