Spake Hagen then, the relentless: "I see not why ye should rue. There is an end of the terror that hath haunted us hitherto. Few now are the foes remaining that against our might shall stand. Glad am I that this man's lordship is brought to an end by mine hand." {P. 135} "Lightly enow may ye vaunt you!" did the hero of Netherland cry: "Had I known thy murderous purpose, thou serpent of treachery, Full well against this thy plotting had Siegfried warded his life! Ah, now is my chiefest sorrow for Kriemhild my widowed wife. Now God forgive it, that ever to me hath a son been born On whom shall be cast his life long the flouts of men and their scorn, Because of the man whom his kinsfolk betrayed to his death with a kiss! Had I but time--had I respite--well might I wail for this! (C) Never was murder compassed so with villainy fraught," Unto the King said Siegfried, "as this that on me ye have wrought! In the day of your dread I saved you, I helped you in bitterest need: And for all my service rendered this is mine evil meed!" Yet again that death-stricken hero spake with an anguished moan: "If it be possible, Gunther, that to any on earth can be shown By thee true faith hereafter, let one be commended now, My dear-loved wife, to thine honour as a king: protect her thou. May this for her profit avail her, that she is thy sister still. By all the honour of princes, defend her thou from ill! For me, for me shall my father and my liegemen tarry long. Ne'er from her nearest and dearest hath woman received such wrong!" (C) Then writhed he in mortal sufferance: he gasped with hard-drawn breath; And he groaned from a heart sore anguished: "For this my murderous death Through all your days hereafter shall ye bear the brand of Cain. Know me herein true prophet--your own selves have ye slain!" To right and to left were the flowers all drenched with the crimson flow. Now hard with death is he wrestling, but short is the agony-throe, For the wound that the blade death-dealing had stricken was all too sore. Now the peerless knight and stainless shall never speak word more. When they saw, those lords there standing, that the noble hero was dead, They lifted him up, and they laid him on a golden buckler red. {P. 136} Then took they counsel together that the truth might be known unto none, And how this thing should be hidden, that of Hagen the deed had been done. Spake of them many: "Evil this day is, a day of bale! Remaineth only concealment: ye needs must be all in a tale. We must say, as alone he was riding, robbers beset and slew The hero, the lord of Kriemhild, as he fared the wildwood through." Spake Hagen of Troneg: "To Rhineland will I bear him, even I. No whit shall it trouble Hagen, though she know all certainly, That woman who dared flout Brunhild, and fill her heart with woe! Let her weep, let her do as she listeth--I shall reck of it little enow."