“Then why,” asked the queen,—“why do you keep it yourself? Why do you risk its bane? Why not give it to your sworn foe, or cast it into the sea, or melt it in the fire, and thus escape the curse?”
Siegfried answered by telling how, when in the heyday of his youth, he had slain Fafnir, the keeper of this hoard, upon the Glittering Heath; and how, while still in the narrow trench which he had dug, the blood of the horrid beast had flown in upon him, and covered him up.
“And this I have been told by Odin’s birds,” he went on to say, “that every part of my body that was touched by the slimy flood was made forever proof against sword and spear, and sharp weapons of every kind. Hence I have no cause to fear the stroke, either of open foes or of traitorous false friends.”
“But was all of your body covered with the dragon’s blood? Was there no small spot untouched?” asked the queen, more anxious now than she had ever seemed to be before she had known aught of her husband’s strange security from wounds.
“Only one very little spot between the shoulders was left untouched,” answered Siegfried. “I afterwards found a lime-leaf sticking there, and I know that the slimy blood touched not that spot. But then who fears a thrust in the back? None save cowards are wounded there.”
“Ah!” said the queen, toying tremulously with the fatal ring, “that little lime-leaf may yet bring us unutterable woe.”
But Siegfried laughed at her fears; and he took the serpent-ring, and slipped it upon his forefinger, and said that he would wear it there, bane or no bane, so long as Odin would let him live.
Then, after another long look at the heaps of glittering gold and priceless gem-stones, the company turned, and followed Alberich back, through the gloomy entranceway and the narrow door, to the open air again. And mounting their steeds, which stood ready, they started homewards. But, at the outer gate, Siegfried paused, and said to the dwarf at parting,—
“Hearken, Alberich! The Hoard of Andvari is no longer mine. I have made a present of it to my queen. Hold it and guard it, therefore, as hers and hers alone; and, whatever her bidding may be regarding it, that do.”
“Your word is law, and shall be obeyed,” said the dwarf, bowing low.