"Fafner, Fafner, awake, thou Dragon!" Alberich trembled with fear when an awful voice roared in answer: "Who wakes me from my sleep?" "A friend," Wotan, the Wanderer, replied, bending his head toward the cave and listening. Alberich, taking courage, listened too, and called: "A foe is near who comes to snatch the Rheingold and the ring from thee." "Then food is near at hand," the Dragon roared in his softest voice. "Listen," Alberich persisted. "If thou wilt give the ring to me, I will help thee." The Dragon yawned terrifically: "Don't trouble yourself. I will look after my hoard and my ring." Even if he had whispered, he could have been heard a mile away. As it was, he spoke in his loudest voice, although he was sleepy, and Alberich nearly fainted with terror. "Thou hast failed with the Dragon, Alberich," the Wanderer said, smiling, "but I will give thee one word more of advice: Make terms with the Mime. Attack him; perhaps thou wilt have better luck with thy kind!" In a flash of lightning, the Wanderer mounted his magic steed and disappeared. When he had looked after him for a moment, Alberich slipped into the Dragon's cave, and as he disappeared, the day slowly dawned, and all the scene grew bright in the morning light. Just at the dawn of day, Siegfried, and the Mime reached the glade before the Dragon's cave. The enchanted sword hung at Siegfried's belt. _Scene II_ "Now we have arrived where the Dragon lives," the Mime said to Siegfried. "Ah?" the youth said, sitting down to rest under a lime tree. He looked curiously about him. "Is it time to be afraid?" he asked, anxiously. "Because if so, I feel nothing yet--although maybe I do, and do not know it?" "Oh, you'll know it fast enough," the Mime assured him. "In that cave there lies the Dragon. His great hairy jaws will open and swallow thee at one gulp." But Siegfried sat under the lime tree and asked if that were really true. It interested him greatly. "But one thing I tell thee," he cried: "If this thing which you have told me be not true, we'll part company at once. I'm not to be fooled. I have come here to learn something--how to be afraid--and if I don't learn it as thou hast said, I'll teach thee to stop lying." "When, out of the Dragon's mouth, a poisoned foam pours, which will kill thee if any drop gets upon thee, I guess thou wilt shake a little. Thy body and thy bones would melt if that stuff touched thee." "Well, I'll give him plenty of room, to be sure," Siegfried replied. "His great tail will sweep about and if he should catch thy limbs in it, thy bones would be crushed like glass." "That sounds very bad; but tell me if this thing has a heart which is placed where other hearts are placed?" "Truly--a cold and cruel heart." "Oh, as to that, I am not concerned, but if he has any heart, Nothung will slip into it. Now come, old babbler, is this the thing that is to teach me fear--this thing that spits a bit and lashes about with a clumsy old tail?"