ady to change their plans?"

Hagen thought a moment, and then the grim smile that was wont to break
the dark lines of his face when he was pleased spread over his features.

"We will have a grand hunt in the Odenwald to-morrow," he hoarsely
whispered.

Adventure XIX. How They Hunted in the Odenwald.

Next morning, at earliest daybreak, while yet the stars were bright, and
the trees hung heavy with dew-drops, and the clouds were light and high,
King Siegfried stood with his warriors before the castle-gate. They
waited but for the sunrise, and a word from Gunther the king, to ride
forth over dale and woodland, and through forest and brake and field, to
meet, as they believed, the hosts of the North-land kings. And Siegfried
moved among them, calm-faced and bright as a war-god, upon the radiant
Greyfell. And men said, long years afterward, that never had the shining
hero seemed so glorious to their sight. Within the spacious courtyard a
thousand Burgundian braves stood waiting, too, for the signal, and the
king's word of command. And at their head stood Hagen, dark as a cloud
in summer, guilefully hiding his vile plots, and giving out orders for
the marching. There, too, were honest Gernot, fearless and upright, and
Giselher, true as gold; and neither of them dreamed of evil, or of the
dark deed that day was doomed to see. Close by the gate was Ortwin,
bearing aloft the blood-red dragon-banner, which the Burgundians were
wont to carry in honor of Siegfried's famous fight with Fafnir. And
there was Dankwart, also, ever ready to boast when no danger threatened,
and ever willing to do chief Hagen's bidding. And next came Volker the
Fiddler good, with the famed sword Fiddle-bow by him, on which, it
is said, he could make the sweetest music while fighting his foes in
battle.

At length the sun began to peep over the eastern hills, and his beams
fell upon the castle-walls, and shot away through the trees, and over
the meadows, and made the dewdrops glisten like myriads of diamonds
among the dripping leaves and blossoms. And a glad shout went up from
the throats of the waiting heroes; for they thought that the looked-for
moment had come, and the march would soon begin. And the shout was
echoed from walls to turrets, and from turrets to trees, and from trees
to hills, and from the hills to the vaulted sky above. And nothing was
wanting now but King Gunther's word of command.

Suddenly, far down the street, the so