y, "but----"

"You doubt?" Alberich shouted, his vanity all aroused.

"Well, if it be true--show us," the cunning Flame Spirit returned.
Immediately Alberich set the Tarnhelm upon his head.

"What would ye that I become?"

"Oh, it matters not--so that you become something that you are not,"
Loge answered carelessly.

"Then behold!" Alberich cried, and instantly he turned into a great
writhing serpent which coiled and uncoiled at Wotan's feet.

"Oh, swallow me not," Loge cried, as if in mortal fear. Then Alberich,
becoming himself again shouted, "Now will you doubt?"

"That was very well done," Loge assured him, "and I grant you
frightened me; but as for your safety--if you could have turned
yourself into some small thing--a toad or mouse for example--it would
be safer for you."

"Then behold!" Alberich shouted again, losing all caution in his
pique. He turned himself into a slimy crippled toad, which crawled
upon the rock, near Wotan's foot. Instantly Wotan set his heel upon
the creature and pinned him to the earth, while Loge grasped the
Tarnhelm. Then Alberich becoming himself again squirmed and shouted,
beneath Wotan's feet.

"Something to bind the imp, quickly," Wotan called to Loge, and in a
trice the dwarf was bound, and borne upward by the God and Loge. Again
they passed by the smithy lights, heard the ring of the anvils, and
soon they were back at the trysting place. The Nibelung, still
shrieking and cursing at his own folly, was placed upon a rock, while
Loge and Wotan stood looking down at him.

_Scene IV_

"There, imp, the Gods have conquered thee and thy magic. Thus they
conquer the powers of evil and darkness. Thou art henceforth our slave
unless you see fit to ransom yourself with the Rhein treasure."

At this, Alberich set up a great howling, but Wotan was impatient.

"Slavery for thee--worse than that of thy Mimes--or else give me the
Rheingold quickly." Alberich remembered his ring--the Tarnhelm hung
at Loge's girdle--and thought he might safely give up the gold.

"With my ring, I can win it back and more too," he thought; so he said
to Loge:

"Well, then, rascal, unbind my arm that I may summon the Nibelungen."
Loge loosened one arm for him, Alberich raised the ring to his lips
and called upon his host of imps. Instantly they poured from the
crevasses of the rocks, laden with the Rheingold, which they dumped in
a great heap before Wotan.

"Ah, thou rogues," Alberich shrieked to L