the hall, Hagen drew Volker aside, and, sitting down on a stone seat near Kriemhild’s door, entered into a life-and-death alliance with him.  Kriemhild, looking out of her window, saw him there and bade her followers go out and slay him; but although they numbered four hundred, they hung back, until the queen, thinking that they doubted her assertions, volunteered to descend alone and wring from Hagen a confession of his crimes, while they lingered within earshot inside the building.  Volker, seeing the queen approach, proposed to Hagen to rise and show her the customary respect; but the latter, declaring that she would ascribe this token of decorum to fear alone, grimly bade him remain seated, and, when she addressed him, boldly acknowledged that he alone had slain Siegfried.

“Said he, ’Why question further? that were a waste of breath. 
In a word, I am e’en Hagen, who Siegfried did to death.

* * * * *

“’What I have done, proud princess, I never will deny. 
The cause of all the mischief, the wrong, the loss, am I.
So now, or man or woman, revenge it whoso will;
I scorn to speak a falsehood,—­I’ve done you grievous ill.’”

          
                                                                Nibelungenlied (Lettsom’s tr.).

But although the warriors had heard every word he said, and the queen again urged them on to attack her foe, they one and all withdrew after meeting one of Hagen’s threatening glances.  This episode, however, was enough to show the Burgundians very plainly what they could expect, and Hagen and Volker soon joined their companions, keeping ever side by side, according to their agreement.

“Howe’er the rest were coupled, as mov’d to court the train,
Folker and Hagen parted ne’er again,
Save in one mortal struggle, e’en to their dying hour.”
Nibelungenlied (Lettsom’s
tr.).

After banqueting with Etzel the guests were led to their appointed quarters, far remote from those of their squires; and when the Huns began to crowd them, Hagen again frightened them off with one of his black looks.  When the hall where they were to sleep was finally reached, the knights all lay down to rest except Hagen and Volker, who mounted guard, the latter beguiling the hours by playing on his fiddle.

Once, in the middle of the night, these self-appointed sentinels saw an armed troop draw near; but when they loudly challenged the foremost men, they beat a hasty retreat.  At dawn of day the knights arose to go to mass, wearing their arms by Hagen’s advice, keeping well together, and presenting such a threatening aspect that Kriemhild’s men dared not attack them.

In spite of all these signs, Etzel remained entirely ignorant of his wife’s evil designs, and continued to treat the Burgundians like friends and kinsmen.

“How deep soe’er and deadly the hate she bore her kin,
Still, had the truth by any disclos’d to Etzel been,
He had at once prevented what afterwards befell. 
Through proud contemptuous courage they scorn’d their wrongs
to tell.”
Nibelungenlied (Lettsom’s tr.).