Just then a ray of sunlight filtered down through the water and struck the Rhine-Gold. Instantly it glowed as though it were a mass of flame, reflecting a hundred shafts of light where one had smitten it. The whole river-bed was illuminated by the glorious rays.
The astonished dwarf looked toward the source of this splendour, and what he saw made his small eyes fairly bulge out with greed. Yet he concealed his amazement and waited to learn something about this splendid treasure without betraying his own interest. Fortune favoured him. His unspoken question was answered by the Rhine-maidens who surged upward with a glad cry of "The Rhine-Gold! The Rhine-Gold!"
"What is this Rhine-Gold you are talking about?" asked the dwarf with a great show of indifference.
"What! Haven't you ever heard of the wonderful Rhine-Gold?" asked one of the maidens thoughtlessly. "We supposed it was famed over all the world."
"But I dwell in the under-world and hear not the things which are spoken among men. Tell me of it, I pray."
Then the maiden forgot her father's warning to guard the treasure closely. She also felt nothing but contempt for this awkward little man from whom they could so easily escape. She told the secret of the Gold in the words of a song
"The realm of the world
To him shall it bring
Who out of this Gold
Shall fashion a Ring
Of magical power untold.
"Hum! Say you so?" said the dwarf, keeping his excitement down by a powerful effort, though his finger-nails fairly clawed into the flesh. "If your metal is as fine as all that, why doesn't someone lay hands upon it and do all these great things?"
"Sister, sister! be careful!" said another of the nymphs.
But the first only laughed and replied, "What can this silly old fellow do? Let us have some more fun teasing him!"