“He may yet make it good to her,” said Gernot, the warrior.
And the sorrowful woman said, “See, I will do as ye desire; I will greet the king.”
When they told him that, the king went with his best friends to her. But Hagen durst not come before her. Well he knew his guilt, and that he had done her a wrong.
Since she had hid her hate to him, Gunther deemed it well to kiss her. If he had not wrought her such woe, he might have gone often and boldly into her presence.
Friends were never reconciled with so many tears, for her wrongs weighed heavy on her heart. She forgave them all, save the one man, for none but Hagen had slain him.
Soon after, they contrived that Kriemhild won the great hoard from the land of the Nibelungs, and brought it to the Rhine. It was her marriage-morning gift, and rightly hers. Giselher and Gernot went for it. Kriemhild sent eighty hundred men to fetch it from where it lay hid, and where Albric with his nearest kinsmen guarded it.
When they saw the men of the Rhine come for the treasure, bold Albric spake to his friends, “We dare not refuse her the treasure, for it is the noble queen’s wedding gift. Yet we had never parted with it, if we had not lost with Siegfried the good Tarnkappe. At all times it was worn by fair Kriemhild’s husband. A woeful thing hath it proved for Siegfried that he took from us the Tarnkappe, and won all this land to his service.”
Then the chamberlain went and got the keys. Kriemhild’s men and some of her kinsmen stood before the mountain. They carried the hoard to the sea, on to the ships, and bare it across the waves from the mountain to the Rhine.
Now hear the marvels of this treasure. Twelve wagons scarce carried it thence in four days and four nights, albeit each of them made the journey three times. It was all precious stones and gold, and had the whole world been bought therewith, there had not been one coin the less. Certes, Hagen did not covet it without cause.
The wishing-rod lay among it, the which, if any discovered it, made him master over every man in all the world.