"Why not?" asked Hagen in feigned surprise. "He is said to be the bravest hero in the world."
"He may be brave, but I care not to talk of him. He is the falsest man alive."
Some rash impulse made her say these words, and she regretted them as soon as spoken. But Hagen was quick to follow them up.
"You amaze and alarm me!" he said. "I had supposed him to be honourable. If he is false he is a menace to our kingdom, and I for one would wish that he were out of it."
"It would indeed be better if he were gone," said Brunhilde, her pride still making her utter rash things.
"I am glad you have advised me of his true character," said Hagen craftily. "The King purposes to give a hunting party to-morrow. Now if Siegfried should not return from it, do you think it would be better so?"
"Yes," said Brunhilde indifferently, and turned to speak to the King.
But if she gave no more thought to these fateful words, Hagen fairly hugged them in his heart. He saw in them a licence to do evil to Siegfried.
The next day, as he had said, the King gave a hunting party in honour of the two brides. All were to meet at noonday for a repast in a grove, but were at liberty to follow, that morning, wherever the chase might lead.
Siegfried's horse Grani soon outdistanced all the others and led him into a deep wood. There he started a bear, but after pursuing it for some time it disappeared, and Siegfried found himself upon a wild part of the banks of the Rhine. Being thirsty and weary he dismounted, drank at the river's brink and threw himself down upon a mossy knoll.