XXIV.
Beside the water, where he stoop’d to drink,
And dropt the knightly helmet,—to his cost,
Sunk in the stream; and since he could not think
Her to retrieve, who late his hopes had crossed,
He, where the treasure fell, descends the brink
Of that swift stream, and seeks the morion lost.
But the casque lies so bedded in the sands,
’Twill ask no light endeavour at his hands.
XXV.
A bough he severs from a neighbouring tree,
And shreds and shapes the branch into a pole:
With this he sounds the stream, and anxiously
Fathoms, and rakes, and ransacks shelf and hole.
While angered sore at heart, and restless, he
So lingered, where the troubled waters roll,
Breast-high, from the mid river rose upright,
The apparition of an angry knight.
XXVI.
Armed at all points he was, except his head,
And in his better hand a helmet bore;
The very casque, which in the river’s bed
Ferrau sought vainly, toiling long and sore.
Upon the Spanish knight he frowned, and said:
“Thou traitor to thy word, thou perjured Moor,
“Why grieve the goodly helmet to resign,
“Which, due to me long since, is justly mine?
