faith. There stands their part of the contract fulfilled,
stone on stone, port and pinnacle all faithfully finished from Wotan's
design by their mighty labor. They have come undoubtingly for their
agreed wage. Then there happens what is to them an incredible,
inconceivable thing. The god begins to shuffle. There are no moments in
life more tragic than those in which the humble common man, the manual
worker, leaving with implicit trust all high affairs to his betters, and
reverencing them wholly as worthy of that trust, even to the extent
of accepting as his rightful function the saving of them from all
roughening and coarsening drudgeries, first discovers that they are
corrupt, greedy, unjust and treacherous. The shock drives a ray of
prophetic light into one giant's mind, and gives him a momentary
eloquence. In that moment he rises above his stupid gianthood, and
earnestly warns the Son of Light that all his power and eminence of
priesthood, godhood, and kingship must stand or fall with the unbearable
cold greatness of the incorruptible law-giver. But Wotan, whose assumed
character of law-giver is altogether false to his real passionate
nature, despises the rebuke; and the giant's ray of insight is lost in
the murk of his virtuous indignation.

In the midst of the wrangle, Loki comes at last, excusing himself
for being late on the ground that he has been detained by a matter of
importance which he has promised to lay before Wotan. When pressed to
give his mind to the business immediately in hand, and to extricate
Wotan from his dilemma, he has nothing to say except that the giants are
evidently altogether in the right. The castle has been duly built: he
has tried every stone of it, and found the work first-rate: there is
nothing to be done but pay the price agreed upon by handing over Freia
to the giants. The gods are furious; and Wotan passionately declares
that he only consented to the bargain on Loki's promise to find a way
for him out of it. But Loki says no: he has promised to find a way out
if any such way exist, but not to make a way if there is no way. He has
wandered over the whole earth in search of some treasure great enough
to buy Freia back from the giants; but in all the world he has found
nothing for which Man will give up Woman. And this, by the way, reminds
him of the matter he had promised to lay before Wotan. The Rhine maidens
have complained to him of Alberic's theft of their gold; and he mentions