nt here? Ha! I
have caught you at your sneaking tricks! Long have I guarded here! You
shall not steal my gold! Get back to your murky cave."

But Mimi screamed:--

"You shall not have the gold! 'T is mine! Long years have I toiled and
waited! The gold is mine, I say!" "Yours?" Alberich snarled in scorn.
"Yours? You snatched it from the Rhine-daughters, did you? You paid the
price to mould that ring?"

And Mimi raved:

"Who made the helmet, that wondrous cap that in a flash can change a man
into anything he wants to be?"

MIMI AND ALBERICH STOP TO QUARREL TOO LONG

While Mimi and Alberich quarreled, Siegfried came from the dragon's
cave, bearing the helmet and the ring.

He heard no sound save the rustling of the leaves and the song of the
bird.

Again he sat down in the shadow of a tree.

"Little bird, can you not help me to find a true friend?" asked
Siegfried.

"Each year you have your mate and your little birdlings in the nest. You
sing songs with the other birds.

"I have never known a father or a mother, a sister or a brother. I am
lonely.

"Is there nowhere in all this world some one whom I may love? Some one
who will love me?"

Then the wood-bird began to sing a pretty love-song of a maiden sleeping
on the crest of a mountain, encircled by fire.

Sweetly he sang:--"Only he who knows no fear may claim her for his
bride."

Siegfried sprang to his feet. "I do not know fear. I have tried with all
my might to learn it. Oh, help me to find the mountain where
she sleeps!"

The little bird flew away in the opposite direction from where the
wicked Nibelungs stood quarreling, and Siegfried joyously hurried after.

SIEGFRIED REACHES THE MOUNTAIN

A heavy storm arose as Siegfried and the bird neared the foot of the
mountain where Brunhilde slept. There were peals of deep thunder.

The sky grew very dark. The great boughs of the trees swayed with the
wind.

Siegfried took shelter under a low spreading fir.

The storm did not last long, and as the light again broke through the
clouds, Siegfried looked about for his little guide, but all in vain.
The bird had fled.

Siegfried started on up the mountain, when suddenly the giant Wotan
stood before him.

"What are you doing here?" demanded Wotan.

Siegfried replied:--

"I am going to the top of this mountain. There a maiden lies sleeping. I
will awaken her, and she shall be my bride."

"Go back to your forest!" commanded Wotan. "This mount