range sound
was heard upon the mountain-side. The twelve great giants who had stood
as watchmen upon the peaks above were rushing down to avenge their
masters, and to drive the intruder out of Nibelungen Land. Siegfried
waited not for their onset; but he mounted the noble horse Greyfell,
and, with the sword Balmung in his hand, he rode forth to meet his foes,
who, with fearful threats and hideous roars, came striding toward him.
The sunbeams flashed from Greyfell's mane, and dazzled the dull eyes of
the giants, unused as they were to the full light of day. Doubtful,
they paused, and then again came forward. But they mistook every tree in
their way for an enemy, and every rock they thought a foe; and in their
fear they fancied a great host to be before them. Did you ever see the
dark and threatening storm-clouds on a summer's day scattered and put
to flight by the bright beams of the sun? It was thus that Siegfried's
giant foes were routed. One and all, they dropped their heavy clubs, and
stood ashamed and trembling, not knowing what to do. And Siegfried made
each one swear to serve him faithfully; and then he sent them back to
the snow-covered mountain-peaks to stand again as watchmen at their
posts.

And now another danger appeared. Alberich the dwarf, the master of the
swarthy elves who guarded the Nibelungen Hoard, had come out from his
cavern, and seen the two princes lying dead beside their treasures, and
he thought that they had been murdered by Siegfried; and, when he beheld
the giants driven back to the mountain-tops, he lifted a little silver
horn to his lips, and blew a shrill bugle-call. And the little brown
elves came trooping forth by thousands: from under every rock, from
the nooks and crannies and crevices in the mountain-side, from the deep
cavern and the narrow gorge, they came at the call of their chief. Then,
at Alberich's word, they formed in line of battle, and stood in order
around the hoard and the bodies of their late masters. Their little
golden shields and their sharp-pointed spears were thick as the blades
of grass in a Rhine meadow. And Siegfried, when he saw them, was pleased
and surprised; for never before had such a host of pygmy warriors stood
before him.

While he paused and looked, the elves became suddenly silent, and
Siegfried noticed that Alberich stood no longer at their head, but had
strangely vanished from sight.

"Ah, Alberich!" cried the hero. "Thou art indeed cunning. I have