The cloud thickens; and the first thunder-plump, prophetic of the destined deluge, will immediately burst. Jealousy is a spider that never wants flies. In the midst of the tilting and junketing, the two queens--as queens, like other idle women, will sometimes do--began to discourse on the merits of their respective husbands; in the course of which conversation, the most natural thing in the world was that Brunhild should proclaim her old cherished belief that Siegfried, as a mere dependent vassal, could never be put into comparison with Gunther, who was his king and superior. On this, Kriemhild, whose gentleness, where the honour of her lord was concerned, fired into lionhood, gave the retort with a spirit more worthy of Brunhild than herself. She said that, to prove her equality with the wife of Gunther, she would walk into the cathedral publicly before her; and she did so. This was bad enough; but, following the inspiration of her womanly wrath once roused, she divulged the fatal fact of her possession of Brunhild's ring and girdle--expressing, at the same time, plainly her belief that her husband Siegfried could not have come by these tokens in any way consistent with the honour of the original possessor. Here now was a breach between the two queens, that no human art could heal. In vain was Siegfried appealed to by Gunther, to testify to the chastity of Brunhild. "'Women must be instructed,' said Siegfried the good knight, 'To leave off idle talking, and rule their tongues aright. Keep thy fair wife in order, I'll do by mine the same; Such overweening folly puts me indeed to shame.'" "Hasty words have often sundered fair dames before." The haughty princess of Iceland now perceives that she had from the beginning been practised upon by Gunther, and that Siegfried had performed the principal part in the plot. Against him, therefore, she vows revenge; and, in order to accomplish his purpose, takes into her counsels HAGAN chief of Trony, one of the most prominent characters in the poem, and who in fact may be looked on as the hero of the second part, after Siegfried has disappeared from the scene. This Hagan is a person of gigantic energy and great experience, but utterly destitute of gentleness and tenderness; all his aims are selfish, and a cold calculating policy is his highest wisdom. Conscience he seems to have none; and, except for a purpose, will scarcely trouble himself to conceal his perpetration of the foulest crimes. He has the aspect of Napoleon--as he is painted by the graphic pencil of Emerson. Like Napoleon, he never hesitates to use falsehood to effect his ends. Pretending extraordinary friendship for Kriemhild, he worms from her the secret of her husband's invulnerability, or rather of his vulnerability--like Achilles--on only one part of the body.