_Hans_. Forgive me, dear my lord and master, that I forgot a moment the bare fact itself, to thee so all-important. I knew thou wouldst never have returned without them, however my heart thirsted after thee. _Prince_. Thou wert right. I knew it well. _Hans_. Where are they, master? Dost thou bear them in thy breast? I feel thou wouldest. Chide me if thou wilt, but show them to me. _Prince_. Look at my helmet. I understand thy eagerness. No sword can cleave them from me, no rush of wind displace them. They are the standard of my fortunes. _Hans_. Thy story, master,--come, tell it to me! _Prince_. Wait, Hans. The hour will come, at drinking-time, while the dull camp-fire flickers to its end, and the fierce thirst of fighting will not let us sleep,--then will I tell the tale and make it glow anew. _Hans_. Master, how changed thou art. Thy fire seems smothered, and thy passions burn less fiercely, being self-controlled. _Prince_. Thou art wrong, my friend; in me there dwells no calm. I stir and seethe. Death itself, which I have conquered, reanimates in me. Only henceforth I gain by firmer paths the end which I have chosen. My country that betrayed me, lies small and half-forgotten in the distance. I measure myself against the great henceforth. What are they? Myself shall be the arbiter, and fate shall never again allure me with her cruel "Take what I offer thee" to a starvation feast. _Hans_. I look at thee in wonderment. I left thee a boy, I find thee a man. And for this, though my sword has itched in my hand to answer to my thoughts, though I have sat for hours on end in gnawing tedium and spat into the sea, for this result I bless the old wife there. Once more I may strike good blows for thee, once more be proud to guard thee as before. _Prince_ [_giving him his hand_]. It shall be so.... Yes, yes, my lad. Since I have been gone--how long is it? _Hans_. A good two years, master. _Prince_. The old wife now, and quickly, that she may open to me all the enchantment lurking in the feathers, to which I trusted and surrendered myself. The time has come for this unmolded life to shape itself after the law of its own desire. Why dost thou hesitate? _Hans_. I will go. _Prince_. But yet thou mutterest? _Hans_. Do not blame me, master; I know of what I speak. First of all, mistrust the old one. I fear her not ... but something horrible and slimy crawled in my throat when I first saw her crouching in a grave, all stiff, her brows drawn and her staring eyes turned inwards lifelessly.... When a storm stood coal-black in the heavens and gave the greedy coffins fresh food--lo, there she stood and bade me dig the graves; and when the wave cast corpses up on the strand, she bore each one up the hill pressed mother-like to her breast, shaken meanwhile with a sly laugh; and thus she laughed until they all lay quietly at rest beneath. Have a care for thyself! _Prince_. Yet why? Her work is pious and she tends it faithfully.