All grew dark before his eyes, yet still his thoughts were with his wife; her name the last upon his lips. “If aught there yet be within thy breast of faith or loyalty,” he said to Günther, “then be thou true unto thy sister Kriemhild! My father and my brave knights now, alas, will wait for me in vain. Oh, never yet hath man so basely dealt by his true friend as thou by me!”
Thereupon the death struggle seized him, but it was soon over; his eyes grew dim, and the soul of the mighty Siegfried took its flight.
When they saw that he was dead, they laid his body on a golden shield upon which to bear it away, and thereafter they took counsel as to what should be done. Some thought it well to say that thieves had slain King Siegfried, but Hagen spoke out boldly, saying:
“I myself will take him back to Worms. It is naught to me if Kriemhild learns ’twas by my hand he died. He defamed our Queen, and for that wrong his life has paid the price, forsooth. Little care I for Kriemhild’s tears or moans.”
So they waited till the pale moon stood high in the heavens, and then, bearing the corpse of Siegfried, King Günther and his companions once more crossed the Rhine.
Chapter XVII
Kriemhild’s Grief
HAGEN had bethought him of a plan to make his terrible revenge complete, by leaving Kriemhild to find the body of her lord before her door. And so it was, for, when at daybreak the bells for matins sounded from the minster spire and Kriemhild awakened her women to go with her to service as was their wont, the chamberlain coming to attend them saw the body without her chamber. Thereupon the door opened and the Queen would have come forth, but the chamberlain, raising his torch to light the passage, warned her to go back, till he should have borne the body thence. But Kriemhild straightway divining what had befallen, uttered a loud shriek and fell senseless to the ground. When she had come to herself again her women sought to calm her, saying the corpse was surely of some stranger knight, but Kriemhild, wringing her hands, cried out:
“Ah no! it is my lord, foully slain by Günther, and Brunhild it was who urged him to the deed!”
Bending over the lifeless form, while the chamberlain lowered his torch, she gently lifted the head and laid it on her knee; and therewith, disfigured as the noble features were, she knew it for her husband.