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“While thus in power and numbers they throng throughout the land,

What is the queen’s intention we cannot understand:

What if she be against us so wroth that we be lost?

The noble maiden surely was born to our great cost!”

Then spake the sturdy Siegfried: “All this will I forestall;

The danger you are dreading I will not let befall.

I must go hence, and succour bring quickly to this shore,—

A band of chosen warriors ne’er known to you before.

“Ye must not seek to find me, I go across the sea;

May God meanwhile preserve you from all indignity!

I’ll come hack quickly, bringing a thousand men with me,

The very best of warriors that ever one could see.”

“Be not too long gone from us,” the king in answer said:

“In this our need we shall be right glad to have your aid.”

Said he: “I'll come back to you, ere many days be spent;

And you must tell the queen that by you I have been sent.”

So thence went Siegfried unto the haven on the strand,

Clad in his hood of darkness, to where a boat did stand.

Therein he stood, all hidden, this son of Siegmund brave;—

He steered it quickly seaward, as ’twere the wind that drave.