"Horns, I hear horns!" she cried, "and the shouts of the pursuers. The shouts of the pursuers sound ever nearer, and strike the sky and echo from the hills. Hunding has woke from his night-draught, and is hot of foot on the trail. He calls on his kindred to help him, and loosens the hounds of hunting. They nose thy trail, and thirstily they give voice, and their thirst waits to be assuaged by blood."
Loudly and in panic terror she cried, but at the end her voice failed, and her arm outflung dropped nerveless, and over her weary eyes drooped the shelter of her eyelids.
"Siegmund, where art thou?" she murmured. "Where art thou? I search for thy look; oh, let it light on me again; leave me not, Siegmund, oh, leave me not. Hark, hark! again I hear that deep baying of the hounds of death; they thirst for thy blood, and their fangs white and sharp grow red with the meat of their hunting. They reck not of thy sword, so fling it away. Hide, let us hide where none shall find us. Thy sword is shattered; what toy-thing is this?—thou fallest reeling ... Siegmund ... Siegmund...."
At that her head drooped and she sank like a thing broken in his arms. It was in vain that he tried to rouse her, and only by the rise and fall of her bosom did he know she lived. So very gently—for, after the labour and travel of the night, it might be that she would sleep—he laid her back on the ground, and made for her a pillow of his knee, to rest her head. But she moved not, nor opened her eyes, yet, for her bosom still rose gently and fell, he comforted himself, and bending over her kissed her on the forehead. Thus they sat, and he grieved over her.
But by now had Brunnhilde put bridle again on to her horse Grane, and led him lightly out of the cavern, and came upon Siegmund and his bride sitting thus. And he was aware of her coming, and looked up, and saw her glorious face; but there was no smile there, for the work before her gave no joy to her. Gravely she looked at him, and her heart was stirred with sorrow for the deed that her father had laid on her to do, and her eyes burned large with doom.
"Siegmund, I am here," she said, "and from here soon I lead thee. Thou seest that I am near thee?"
And Siegmund answered: "Yes, but I know thee not," and a strange cold heaviness was lead in his limbs and in his eye.
"I come near to those whom death comes near to," said she, "and none others see me. He into whose eyes I look stays not in the light. With me thou goest, and thou goest with me far."
Then something of the great calm with which death is ever girt about, struck on Siegmund's heart, but he was not afraid.
"And where goest thou?" he asked.