(C) But so grim and great a murder had she purposed not at the first:
Nay, in the strife’s beginning one thought in her breast she nursed,
That Hagen alone by her vengeance to a bloody end should come:—
But therein was the Foul Fiend working to fashion for all one doom.
The day was past: the heroes were now in evil strait.
Weary and famished, it seemed them swift death were a better fate
Than long to linger in torment of hunger and thirst and pain.
Wherefore the knights high-hearted for a truce with their foes were fain.
They asked that the King might meet them before the feast-hall door.
Then the heroes with armour-soilure blackened, and red with gore,