Hagen and Hildebrand exchanged so many scornful words when they met, that Dietrich chid them for a couple of old women, and demanded that the combat should at once begin. Hagen sprang forward without delay. Balmung was as sharp as ever it had been, and the hero of Bern had much trouble to defend himself; but the hand that wielded the sword was weary, and less nimble than of yore. Dietrich, seeing this, made a sudden spring upon Hagen, threw him down, and bound him fast. Then he bore his prisoner into the presence of Chriemhild, and recommended him to her mercy, saying that he was the boldest and bravest warrior in the whole world. He only noticed the thanks and praise she gave him for his doughty deed, and did not mark the gleam in her eyes, nor rightly interpret the flush that rose to her cheeks. He hastened away to the last battle with King Gunther.
Chriemhild had gained her end: that end to which she had waded through rivers of noble blood. Hagen read his fate in her eyes; but he never flinched: he would not give her that dear satisfaction. She wondered whether she could make him confess where he had hidden the Nibelung treasure. She spoke to him kindly, and promised to let him go safely home, if he would only tell her the hiding-place. The hero seemed touched by her gentleness, and said that he would willingly tell her, but that he had sworn to keep the secret as long as one of the three kings of Burgundy was alive.
She promised him again that she would keep her word, if he did her will; and then had him taken away to sure watch and ward.
“Lies, lies, all lies,” he said to himself, as his gaolers led him away.
The hero of Bern soon afterwards appeared with King Gunther as a prisoner; the latter was at once taken to a separate dungeon Chriemhild considered what was now to be done. Siegfried’s murderers were now in her hands, both the man who had done the deed, and the king who had condoned it.
She felt a few qualms of conscience when she thought that Gunther was, after all, her brother; but she soon stifled them, and calmly pursued the path she had marked out for herself. King Gunther’s head was cut off by her orders, and laid at Hagen’s feet to convince him that now the last king of Burgundy was dead.
The hero thrust away the head contemptuously. “It was not thou,” he said, “to whom I swore allegiance, and whose crown I strove to keep free from stain. The royal house of Burgundy, to which I belonged, is wasted, and its glory overthrown. Of what worth to me is the span of life that remains?”
That night Chriemhild had a happy dream. She thought that Siegfried stood before her as she had seen him first; that he stretched out his arms to her in love and gratitude, and then vanished slowly in the grey dawn.
Next morning Chriemhild seated herself beside King Etzel in all her robes of state. The hero of Tronje was brought before her, a prisoner, and in bonds. She questioned him again as to the hiding-place of the treasure. Raising his head, he answered with all his former boldness:
“You are mistaken, woman, if you think that you have my mind in your power, that you have tamed me entirely. The kings are all dead now, Gunther, Gernot, Giselher; now none but God and I know where the treasure was sunk in the deep waters of the Rhine, and from me you shall never learn where you may seek with any hope of finding.”