“Listen!” he said. “Remember, O Alberich, what I say. All things work in nature’s course. You can alter nothing.” And, so saying, he vanished in the dark woods, and a faint, pale flicker of lightning shot through the forest as he went. Alberich crept hastily into a crevice in the rocks on one side, and the dawn broke just as two figures came into the little green glade by Hate Hole. The figures were those of Siegfried and Mime; for the Nibelung, true to his word, had led the boy to the place where he was to learn to fear. “If you do not hastily discover fear here, my dear boy, you never will anywhere,” said the Dwarf, with a chuckle. And he described at great length the means which Fafner would use to teach the art, saying that the Dragon’s breath was fire, and his twisting tail strong enough to crush any hero. But Siegfried merely laughed, and said that he would find the great worm’s heart and strike Nothung into that; and then he bade Mime be gone. The Nibelung crept away out of sight among the trees, and as he went he muttered, in an exasperated undertone: “Fafner and Siegfried! Siegfried and Fafner! Oh, that each might kill the other!” The boy, left alone, sat under a linden-tree, looking up through the branches. At first Mime’s figure pervaded his brain, and he could not help remembering the horrible little creature. But, after a while, thoughts of his mother crept in—very vague and formless thoughts—for this forest youth had never in his life seen a woman. Leaning back, he gave himself up to the enchantment of the summer-day, dreaming boyish dreams, and listening to the forest voices all around him. Have you ever sat in a great, green wood and watched the soft flickering shadows from the little leaves overhead dance back and forth on the moss? Have you heard the great surge of music made of a thousand tiny sounds, the hum of little, unseen insects, the ripple of far-away brooks, the faint sigh of the wind in the tall reeds, the rustling of the trees, the melodies that seemed made by the touch of some master-hand on a great harp? That was what Siegfried saw and heard that summer day when he lay under the linden-tree and dreamed day-dreams. After a while a little bird began to sing in the tree above him, and after listening for a moment, and wondering whether it brought him a message from his mother, he resolved to try to imitate it, remembering that Mime had once said that some people were able to talk with the birds. So he fashioned a flute out of a reed and tried to play upon it the melody that the bird sang. Finally, however, he gave it up in despair, and instead, as he began to feel lonely, he blew a loud blast on his horn—to bring him a friend, he said to himself. [Illustration: THE DEATH OF THE DRAGON] And what sort of a friend do you think it brought him?