"'I cast a spell upon him,' she says, 'so that he could not be wounded in battle, but I knew that he would never turn his back upon an enemy, so I set no spell there; you may strike him in the back.'
"Now, he tells the king that nothing but the hero's death can restore the honor that he has lost. 'To-morrow,' he says, 'we will go hunting; I will kill him with my spear, and we will tell the princess that it was a wild boar that did it.'
"'It shall be so,' they all cry; 'he must die.'
"And whom do you think I see now? The river nymphs again. Not before the king's house, where we have been so long, but in another part of the river, all shut in by wild woods and rocks. They are swimming and playing on the water, just as they did under it when we saw them first, and they seem just as careless and happy as they did then, but they are still mourning for their lost treasure and longing to get it back again. If they could only get the ring it would do as well as the whole treasure, for the ring is the magic part of it. And now to this very spot comes the hero, who wears the ring on his finger. He has wandered away from the king and his men, who were hunting with him, and as soon as the nymphs see him they beg him to give them back their ring.
"He says that he will not, at first; it was too much trouble for him to win it from the dragon. But he really does not care so very much about it, and I think he would let them have it in the end if it were not for a great mistake that they make in asking for it. They tell him about the curse of the ring, and that if he keeps it he will be killed this very day. Now, you can see easily enough that that is the very worst thing they could say if they hoped to get the ring from him, for he is not in the least afraid of being killed, and he will not have anybody believe that he is afraid. They shall not have it, he says, happen what will. They will have it, they call back to him, and this very day; and so they dive down under the water and leave him.
"Now come the rest of the huntsmen and sit about in a circle to rest here in the shade and to talk. The king is gloomy, thinking still of the wrongs that have been done him. His half-brother asks the hero if it is true that he knows what the birds say. 'I listen to them no more,' he answers; 'but to cheer the king I will tell you some stories of the things that I have seen and the things that I have done.'
"He tells them of the dwarf who kept him and brought him up that he might fight the dragon; he tells how he mended the magic sword, how he killed the dragon with it, and took the helmet and the ring from the cave. A bird then sang to him, he says, and told him that the dwarf would try to kill him, but he killed the dwarf instead. Here he stops, for he cannot remember anything about the mountain top with the fire around it, or the Daughter of the God, or even what the bird sang to him next. But the king's half-brother squeezes something into his wine and tells him to drink it and it will make him remember better.
"He drinks, and it does make him remember better. He tells of the lovely woman who slept with the fire all around her, and how he kissed her and awoke her. Then suddenly the king understands it all; he remembers the drink of forgetfulness that they gave the hero, and he knows that nobody has done any wrong but his wicked half-brother; he it was who told him of the woman in the fire who should be his wife, he who said that the hero should bring her to him, he who bade them give him the drink to make him forget, he who first said that the hero must die. The king would gladly save the hero now, but it is too late.
"It is too late, for of a sudden two ravens fly up from beside the river and away over the heads of them all. They are the ravens that fly all over the world and then to the Father of the Gods, to tell him all that they see and all that they hear. They are going now to tell him that the end of the gods, the end that he longs for, is near. The hero starts up to hear what they say. He turns his back to the others, and the half-brother, before the king can stop him, thrusts his spear into his back. The hero turns for an instant to rush against the murderer, but his strength is gone, and he falls helpless upon the ground. All the rest cry out in horror, and the half-brother turns from them and strides away.
"And what now of the hero? He speaks no word to those who stand about him as he lies here dying on the ground. Where are his thoughts now? He is thinking of the only time he ever feared. He is back again upon the rock, with the flames curling and whirling all around him. Before him once more lies the Daughter of the God. Again he kisses her lips. She awakes. He sees again those deep, blue, wonderful eyes. He does not see the rocks, or the trees, or the sunlight—only her. Again for one last moment he knows that in all the world there cannot be another woman such as this. They look each into the other's eyes and into the other's heart. He is dead.