Then the bold Burgundian the good Sir Gernot spake,
"What can it boot you, Hagan, the chaplain's life to take?
Had any other done it, he should have rued it straight.
What can thus have mov'd you the holy man to hate?"
LXXIV
Stoutly swam the chaplain; to 'scape ne'er doubted he,
Would any but assist him, but that was not to be;
Stern Hagan, fierce and furious, as close he swam along,
Dash'd him to the bottom, wrong heaping still on wrong.
LXXV
None there but thought it outrage, yet none came to his aid,
Which when he saw, back turning for th' other bank he made;
Though fail'd his strength o'erwearied, yet God's almighty hand
Back bore him through the billows, and brought him safe to land.
LXXVI
There stood the poor clerk shivering, and shook his dripping weed.
By this well knew Sir Hagan that their dark doom decreed,
As those wild mermaids warn'd him, 'twas all in vain to shun.
Thought he, "These hopeful champions must perish every one."
LXXVII
Soon as the bark was emptied, and all the goods it bore
By the three brethren's vassals were safely brought to shore,
Stern Hagan broke it piecemeal and down the current cast;
The good knights star'd upon him, with wonder all aghast.