The uproar fell to silence, the tumult was stilled for a space; Then Dankwart glanced around him o'er the slaughter-reeking place: "Alas for the dear friends," cried he, "that here in death lie low! And I--woe's me!--I am standing alone in the midst of the foe!" Upon that one man in fury did countless sword-strokes leap: But the wife of many a hero for this had cause to weep. Higher he lifted his buckler; the arm-brace lower he drew. Then many a rifted harness was drenched with crimson dew. Cried Aldrian's son: "My torment is greater than man may bear! Give way, ye knights of the Hunfolk; let me win forth to free air, That over the warfare-weary the cooling breeze may play!" To the door through blows down-hailing he gallantly hewed his way. When the battle-weary champion forth of the portal sprang, How many swords unblooded then on his helmet rang Wielded by them who had seen not the marvels wrought by his hand! Forth leapt to meet them the hero, the pride of Burgundia-land. "Now would to God," cried Dankwart, "that a messenger were but nigh, Who should tell my brother Hagen of mine extremity, Who am thus by armèd traitors beset before and behind! Me from their midst would he rescue, or his own death here would he find." Answered the Hunfolk scoffing: "That messenger thou must be, When into thy brother's presence we drag a dead man--thee! Then first shall the liegeman of Gunther gaze on his own heart's woe. Thou to the men of King Etzel hast here done mischief enow." "Have done with your threats!" he shouted. "Give back, ye traitor brood! Else many a man's war-harness will I drench with his own life-blood. {P. 266} I, even I, to the palace will bear these tidings of bane, And there of the wrong and the outrage to my lords will I complain." Then he plunged in their midst, and such havoc he wrought in the Hunnish horde, That they shrank before him, and dared not close in the strife of the sword; But they hurled their spears, till so thickly did the shafts in his buckler stand That the weight thereof constrained him to cast it away from his hand. Then thought they to overbear him, that one man shieldless left. Ha! but he hewed two-handed, and through helmet and brain he cleft. Before him many a brave man went reeling and staggering back. High praise and renown bold Dankwart won in the battle-wrack. Then leapt his adversaries upon him to left and to right:-- Ha! but of these full many too hastily came to the fight! Full on the foemen charged he, as chargeth a forest-boar On the hounds in the wood--was valour like his seen ever before?