Now surf-sunk for minutes again they uptossed,
And with livid lips shouted reply o’er the flood
To the challenging watchman that curdled his blood—
“We are dead—we are bound from our graces in the west,
First to Hecla, and then to——” Unmeet was the rest
For man’s ear. The old abbey bell thundered its clang,
And their eyes gleamed with phosphorous light as it rang
Ere they vanished, they stopped, and gazed silently grim,
Till the eye could define them, garb, feature and limb
Now who were those roamers?—of gallows or wheel