It was Arnold, who, with his men, had joined Rother’s other friends, and who now came with them to the rescue of his former benefactor. There was a fearful battle. Imelot and many more fell fighting desperately, while Basilistum was slain during the flight. The whole army of Desert-Babylon was scattered or destroyed. After the victory King Rother asked for the emperor, but found that Constantine had thought “prudence the better part of valour,” and had long before fled to the palace, where he had taken refuge in the women’s apartments. His courage had all ebbed away, and he begged his wife and daughter to entreat Rother to save him out of the hand of the giants, those veritable children of the evil one. The ladies were soon ready to go out and meet the ruler of the West. They placed the timid emperor in their midst, and accompanied by a numerous train, set out for the wood. The first people they met were the giants. Asprian’s falcon-eyes at once spied out the emperor, carefully as he tried to hide himself. Stretching his long arm over the empress, he seized him by the scruff of the neck and flung him on the ground. Widolt raised his club to put an end to him as he lay there senseless, but his master stopped him, saying— “Not so, Widolt; away with the miserable wretch to the gallows.” The giant caught the emperor up as easily as if he had been a baby, and went dancing along the road to the gallows with him in his arms. But they soon came up with Rother and his heroes, and the king pardoned Constantine. He could not have done otherwise: his wife was once more in his arms, and where love rules, wrath and vengeance have no place. When they all met in the banqueting room that evening, the emperor found himself unusually hungry after the many and varied emotions he had gone through, and it is said that he devoured a whole leg of mutton, and drank an immense quantity of wine. King Rother left the whole of the Eastern empire, which he had just conquered, in the hands of his father-in-law, and then set sail for Bari accompanied by Queen Oda. Arrived there, they went on to Rome, where a second marriage was solemnized with great pomp. Rother and his wife lived long and happily together, and had many children. We shall hear pleasant things of their daughter Herka (or Herche, Helche), and their grand-daughter Herat, as time goes on. [Illustration: ORTNIT AND ALBERICH.] III. ORTNIT