The Valkyries

by E. F. Benson; Richard Wagner

It was now dark, and only the gleam from the fire made a little brightness in the hall, and for a moment she thought that it must have been the wind only that had moved the door, for she saw none there, neither Hunding nor another, but only the firelight crouching on the hearth and leaping on the walls of the empty room, and gleaming very brightly on the hilt of the sword which the stranger had buried in the ash-stem on the day of her marriage. Then with a cry of surprise she saw that a man was stretched out on the bear-skin by the hearth, without movement, but lying like one dead. His face she could not see, for it was turned away from her towards the fire, but he was tall in stature, and his arm, bare to the shoulder, was strong and sinewy. His clothes were ragged and drenched with the rain, but the firelight shone on the hair that fell thickly to his shoulder, and it gleamed yellow in the firelight like the honey she had just now drawn for her husband's mead. And when she saw that she felt that for a moment a long-drawn breath hung suspended in her bosom. Then, for here was a man sick perhaps to death, and in need of help, the thought that had not yet been consciously hers died again, and she went nearer to him. But still the man did not move; only she saw that his tunic rose and fell with the rising and falling of his breath, and she knew that whoever he was he was not dead, but only fallen in sore faintness of exhaustion, and that his eyelids, which had fallen over his eyes, so that the lashes swept his cheek, were not closed in the sleep of death. And as she thus looked at his face which was turned towards the firelight, again a breath hung suspended in her bosom, for he was fair, not dark like Hunding, and the short beard of early manhood which fringed his tip and covered his chin was yellow, even as the honey which she had drawn for her husband's mead.

Even as she looked, the man stirred, and though his eye did not open, his tongue moved in his mouth, and—

"Water, water!" he whispered, and his voice was low and deep and soft.

At that Sieglinde stayed not in idle surmise, but pity for a man distressed woke in her heart, pity and the woman's need to help, and she took up Hunding's drinking-horn which she had laid on the table for his supper, and hurried out of the house to where the well of water sprang bubbling out of the mossy bed beneath the hawthorn trees. The storm had altogether ceased, and in the heaven washed clean by the rain the stars burned large. The chill of the long winter had gone, and the balmy warmth of spring filled the air, and, even as she bent to fill the horn at the runnel of water, close above her head a nightingale burst into bubbling song. And she wondered, yet paused not to wonder, but hurried back into the house with the horn brimful of the fresh spring water.

So with the horn in her hand she returned, and found the stranger still lying as she had left him, and into his nerveless hand she put the horn.

"Water," she said, "thou didst ask for water;" and he drank till the horn was empty, yet still raised not his eyes.

"Water, water," he said; "thou hast given me water, and I give thee thanks. Already——"

And he paused, and the bear-skin stood away from the braced arm. "Already I am my own master again. That was all I needed."

Yet that was not all, for he sank back again to his elbow in the bear-skins, and he gazed at her.

"Lady, I thank thee," said he. "Thou hast wakened me, thou hast welcomed me. The sleep and darkness of my faintness stands away from me. So tell me: whom is it that I thank?"