m!" Bruennhilde
rushes to meet him.

A figure springs from the flames upon a rock, a form foreign to
Bruennhilde's eyes. The flames drop back. The figure remains, dark
against the dim glow of the sky. His head and the greater part of
his face are concealed by a helmet of curious fashion; she does
not, in the uncertain light, recognise the Tarnhelm. The fact itself
of his being there is terrifying, arguing some singular treachery
somewhere. "Treason!" is Bruennhilde's first cry, as she recoils and
from a distance stares breathlessly at the sinister intruder. He
stands motionless, leaning upon his shield and regarding her. "Who
is it that has forced his way to me?" she gasps. He is silent still;
the horror of him is increased by his silence and motionlessness
and his metal mask. The motif of evil enchantment is woven through
the whole of this scene. In a hard masterful voice he speaks at
length: "Bruennhilde! A suitor is come whom your fire does not alarm!
I seek you for my wife; follow me unresistingly." It is all so
strange, so like the agonising impossibilities of a dream,--Bruennhilde
falls to trembling. "Who are you, dreadful one? Are you a mortal?
Do you come from Hella's army of the night?" Still watching her,
motionless on his point of vantage, he replies: "A Gibichung am
I, and Gunther is the hero's name, whom, woman, you must follow."
It flashes upon Bruennhilde that this, this must have been the true
point of Wotan's punishment. When the figure springs from the rock
and approaches her, she raises, to hold him off, the hand with
Siegfried's ring. "Stand back! Fear this sign!... Stronger than
steel I am made by this ring; never shall you rob me of it!" "You
teach me," he replies, with his dark calm, "to detach it from you!"
He reaches for it, she defends it. They wrestle. She escapes from
him with a victorious cry. He seizes her again. The former Valkyrie,
reinforced by the Ring, is a match very nearly for the stalwart
Waelsung. A shriek is heard. He has caught her hand, and draws the
ring from her finger. As if all her strength had been in it and
were gone with its loss, she sinks, broken, in the arms of the
disguised Siegfried. He coldly lets her down upon the seat of rock.
"Now you are mine, Bruennhilde,--Gunther's bride. Withhold not your
favour from me now!" She cowers, shattered and stupefied, murmuring,
"How could you have helped yourself, miserable woman!" The right of
the stronger she recognises, primi