his shoulder to the rock, and pushed with all his might.
But it seemed as firm as the mountain, and would not be moved.

"Help us, thou cunning dwarf," he cried,--"help us, and thou shalt have
thy life!"

The dwarf put his shoulder to the rock, and it turned over as if by
magic, and underneath was disclosed a wondrous chamber, whose walls
shone brighter than the sun, and on whose floor lay treasures of gold
and glittering gem-stones such as no man had ever seen. And Loki, in
great haste, seized upon the hoard, and placed it in the magic net which
he had borrowed from the Ocean-queen. Then he came out of the chamber;
and Andvari again put his shoulder to the rock which lay at the
entrance, and it swung back noiselessly to its place.

"What is that upon thy finger?" suddenly cried Loki. "Wouldst keep back
a part of the treasure? Give me the ring thou hast!"

But the dwarf shook his head, and made answer, "I have given thee all
the riches that the elves of the mountain have gathered since the world
began. This ring I cannot give thee, for without its help we shall never
be able to gather more treasures together."

And Loki grew angry at these words of the dwarf; and he seized the ring,
and tore it by force from Andvari's fingers. It was a wondrous little
piece of mechanism shaped like a serpent, coiled, with its tail in its
mouth; and its scaly sides glittered with many a tiny diamond, and its
ruby eyes shone with an evil light. When the dwarf knew that Loki really
meant to rob him of the ring, he cursed it and all who should ever
possess it, saying,--

"May the ill-gotten treasure that you have seized tonight be your bane,
and the bane of all to whom it may come, whether by fair means or by
foul! And the ring which you have torn from my hand, may it entail upon
the one who wears it sorrow and untold ills, the loss of friends, and a
violent death! The Norns have spoken, and thus it must be."

Loki was pleased with these words, and with the dark curses which
the dwarf pronounced upon the gold; for he loved wrong-doing, for
wrong-doing's sake, and he knew that no curses could ever make his own
life more cheerless than it always had been. So he thanked Andvari
for his curses and his treasures; and, throwing the magic net upon his
shoulder, he sprang again into the air, and was carried swiftly back to
Hunaland; and, just before the dawn appeared in the east, he alighted
at the door of the farmhouse where Odin and Hoenir