and the
Nibelungen earls; and what they think best, that will I do."

For nine days, then, waited Gere at Siegfried's hall; but still the king
put off his answer.

"Wait until to-morrow," he said each day, for his heart whispered dim
forebodings.

At length, as midsummer was fast drawing near, the impatient captain
could stay no longer; and he bade his followers make ready to go back
forthwith to Burgundy. When the queen saw that they were ready to
take their leave, and that Gere could wait no longer upon the king's
pleasure, she urged her husband to say to Gunther that they would come
to his harvest festival. And the lords and noble earl-folk added their
persuasions to hers.

"Send word back to the Burgundian king," said they, "that you will go,
as he desires. We will see to it that no harm comes to your kingdom
while you are away."

So Siegfried called Gere and his comrades into the ball, and loaded them
with costly gifts such as they had never before seen, and bade them say
to their master that he gladly accepted the kind invitation he had sent,
and that, ere the harvest high-tide began, he and Kriemhild would be
with him in Burgundy.

And the messengers went back with all speed, and told what wondrous
things they had seen in Nibelungen Land, and in what great splendor
Siegfried lived. And, when they showed the rare presents which had been
given them, all joined in praising the goodness and greatness of the
hero-king. But old chief Hagen frowned darkly as he said,--

"It is little wonder that he can do such things, for the Shining Hoard
of Andvari is his. If we had such a treasure, we, too, might live in
more than kingly grandeur."

Early in the month of roses, Siegfried and his peerless queen, with a
retinue of more than a thousand warriors and many fair ladies, started
on their long and toilsome journey to the South-land. And the folk who
went with them to the city gates bade them mane tearful farewells, and
returned to their homes, feeling that the sunshine had gone forever from
the Nibelungen Land. But the sky was blue and cloudless, and the breezes
warm and mild, and glad was the song of the reapers as adown the seaward
highway the kingly company rode. Two days they rode through Mist Land,
to the shore of the peaceful sea. Ten days they sailed on the waters.
And the winds were soft and gentle; and the waves slept in the sunlight,
or merrily danced in their wake. But each day, far behind them, there
f