Imatges de pàgina
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And he did grasp it in his death-pang! That beat'st thy black wings close above my head! [ORDONIO enters with the keys of the dungeon

in his hand.

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Yes! yes! we recognize them

I was benumb'd, and stagger'd up and down
Through darkness without light-dark-dark-dark!
My flesh crept chill, my limbs felt manacled,
As had a snake coil'd round them!-Now 't is sun-

shine,

And the blood dances freely through its channels! [Turns off abruptly; then to himself

This is my virtuous, grateful Isidore!

[Then mimicking ISIDORE's manner and voice.

"A common trick of gratitude, my Lord!" Oh Gratitude! a dagger would dissect His "own full heart"-'t were good to see its color.

VALDEZ.

Off, false Demon, These magic sights! O that I ne'er had yielded,
To your entreaties! Neither had I yielded,
But that in spite of your own seeming faith
I held it for some innocent stratagem,
Which Love had prompted, to remove the doubts
Of wild Teresa-by fancies quelling fancies!

Hush! who comes here? The wizard Moor's em-
ployer!
Moors were his murderers, you say? Saints shield us
From wicked thoughts-

[VALDEZ moves towards the back of the stage to
meet ORDONIO, and during the concluding
lines of TERESA's speech appears as eagerly
conversing with him.

Is Alvar dead? what then?

The nuptial rites and funeral shall be one!
Here's no abiding-place for thee, Teresa.-
Away! they see me not-Thou seest me, Alvar!
To thee I bend my course. But first one question,
One question to Ordonio. My limbs tremble-
There I may sit unmark'd-a moment will restore me.
[Retires out of sight.

wherefore?

ORDONIO (in a slow voice, as reasoning to himself.) Love! Love! and then we hate! and what? and Hatred and Love! Fancies opposed by fancies! What, if one reptile sting another reptile! Where is the crime? The goodly face of Nature Hath one disfeaturing stain the less upon it. Are we not all predestined Transiency, And cold Dishonor? Grant it, that this hand Had given a morsel to the hungry worms Somewhat too early-Where's the crime of this? That this must needs bring on the idiocy Of moist-eyed Penitence-'tis like a dream!

VALDEZ.

ORDONIO (as he advances with VALDEZ). These are the dungeon keys. Monviedro knew not Wild talk, my son' But thy excess of feelingThat I too had received the wizard message,

[Averting himself

Almost, I fear, it hath unhinged his brain.

ORDONIO (now in soliloquy, and now addressing

ORDONIO.

Is it so?

his father and just after the speech has Yes! yes! even like a child, that, too abruptly
commenced, TERESA reappears and advances Roused by a glare of light from deepest sleep,
slowly).

Say, I had laid a body in the sun!
Well! in a month there swarm forth from the corse
A thousand, nay, ten thousand sentient beings

In place of that one man.-Say, I had kill'd him!
[TERESA starts, and stops, listening.

Yet who shall tell me, that each one and all
Of these ten thousand lives is not as happy
As that one life, which being push'd aside,
Made room for these unnumber'd-

VALDEZ.

O mere madness!

[TERESA moves hastily forwards, and places herself directly before ORDONIO.

Starts up bewilder'd and talks idly.

(Then mysteriously.)

Father!

What if the Moors that made my brother's grave,
Even now were digging ours? What if the bolt,
Though aim'd, I doubt not, at the son of Valdez,
Yet miss'd its true aim when it fell on Alvar ?

VALDEZ.

Alvar ne'er fought against the Moors, -say rather,
He was their advocate; but you had march'd
With fire and desolation through their villages.-
Yet he by chance was captured.

ORDONIO (checking the feeling of surprise, and Captured, yet, as
Leave all to me.

forcing his tones into an expression of
playful courtesy).

Teresa? or the Phantom of Teresa?

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ORDONIO.

Unknown, perhaps,

the son of Valdez, murder'd.

Nay, whither, gentle Lady?

VALDEZ.

What seek you now?

TERESA.

A better, surer light

To guide me

Both VALDEZ and ORDOΝΙΟ.

Whither?

TERESA.

To the only place Where life yet dwells for me, and ease of heart These walls seem threatening to fall in upon me! Detain me not! a dim Power drives me hence, And that will be my guide.

VALDEZ.

To find a lover!

Suits that a high-born maiden's modesty ?
O folly and shame! Tempt not my rage, Teresa!

TERESA.

Hopeless, I fear no human being's rage.
And am I hastening to the arms
O Heaven!
I haste but to the grave of my beloved !
[Exit, VALDEZ following after her.

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The hunt is up! and in the midnight wood,
With lights to dazzle and with nets they seek
A timid prey: and lo! the tiger's eye
Glares in the red flame of his hunter's torch!
To Isidore I will dispatch a message,
And lure him to the cavern! ay, that cavern!
He cannot fail to find it. Thither I'll lure him,
Whence he shall never, never more return!

[Looks through the side window

A rim of the sun lies yet upon the sea,
And now 't is gone! All shall be done to-night.

[Exit. ACT IV.

SCENE I.

A cavern, dark, except where a gleam of moonlight is seen on one side at the further end of it; supposed to be cast on it from a crevice in a part of the cavern out of sight. ISIDORE alone, an extinguished torch in his hand.

ISIDORE.

Faith 't was a moving letter-very moving!
'His life in danger, no place safe but this!
Twas his turn now to talk of gratitude."
And yet but no! there can't be such a villain.
It cannot be!

Thanks to that little crevice,

Which lets the moonlight in! I'll go and sit by it.
To peep at a tree, or see a he-goat's beard,
Or hear a cow or two breathe loud in their sleep-
Any thing but this crash of water-drops!
These dull abortive sounds that fret the silence
With puny thwartings and mock opposition!
So beats the death-watch to a dead man's ear.

[He goes out of sight, opposite to the patch of

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When a boy, my Lord!

moonlight: returns after a minute's elapse, I could have sate whole hours beside that chasm,

in an ecstasy of fear.

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Push'd in huge stones, and heard them strike and
rattle
Against its horrid sides: then hung my head
Low down, and listen'd till the heavy fragments
Sank with faint crash in that still groaning well,
Which never thirsty pilgrim blest, which never
A living thing came near-unless, perchance,
Some blind-worm battens on the repy mould
Close at its edge.

ORDONIO.

Art thou more coward now!

ISIDORE.

Call him, that fears his fellow-man, a coward!
I fear not man-but this inhuman cavern,

ORDONIO (goes into the recess, then returns, and with It were too bad a prison-house for goblins.
great scorn).
A jutting clay stone
Props on the long lank weed, that grows beneath:
And the weed nods and drips.

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[Lights his torch at ORDONIO's, and while lighting it.
(A lighted torch in the hand,

Is no unpleasant object here one's breath
Floats round the flame, and makes as many colors
As the thin clouds that travel near the moon.)
You see that crevice there?

My torch extinguish'd by these water drops,
And marking that the moonlight came from thence,
I stept in to it, meaning to sit there;

But scarcely had I measured twenty paces-
My body bending forward, yea, overbalanced

Almost beyond recoil, on the dim brink

Of a huge chasm I stept. The shadowy moonshine
Filling the Void, so counterfeited Substance,

Beside (you'll smile, my Lord), but true it is,
My last night's sleep was very sorely haunted
By what had pass'd between us in the morning.
O sleep of horrors! Now run down and stared at
By Forms so hideous that they mock remembrance-
Now seeing nothing and imagining nothing,
But only being afraid stifled with Fear!
While every goodly or familiar form

Had a strange power of breathing terror round me!
I saw you in a thousand fearful shapes;
And, I entreat your lordship to believe me,
In my last dream-

ORDONIO.

Well?

ISIDORE

I was in the act

Of falling down that chasm, when Alhadra
Waked me: she heard my heart beat.

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Never, my Lord!
But mine eyes do not see it now more clearly,
Than in my dream I saw that very chasm.

ORDONIO (stands lost in thought, then after a pause.)
I know not why it should be! yet it is

What is, my Lord?

ORDONIO.

Abhorrent from our nature,

To kill a man

ISIDORE.

Except in self-defence.

ORDONIO.

Why, that's my case; and yet the soul recoils from it
Tis so with me at least. But you, perhaps,

Have sterner feelings?

ISIDORE.

Something troubles you.

How shall I serve you? By the life you gave me,
By all that makes that life of value to me,
My wife, my babes, my honor, I swear to you,
Name it, and I will toil to do the thing,
If it be innocent! But this, my Lord,
Is not a place where you could perpetrate,
No, nor propose, a wicked thing. The darkness,
When ten strides off, we know 'tis cheerful moonlight,
Collects the guilt, and crowds it round the heart.
It must be innocent.

[ORDONIO darkly, and in the feeling of self-justifica-
tion, tells what he conceives of his own character and
actions, speaking of himself in the third person.

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ORDONIO.

What boots it, who or when?

Hang up thy torch-I'll tell his tale to thee.

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He proved a traitor
Betray'd the mystery to a brother traitor,
And they between them hatch'd a damned plot

[They hang up their torches on some ridge in To hunt him down to infamy and death.

the cavern.

He was a man different from other men,

And he despised them, yet revered himself.

ISIDORE (aside).

He? He despised? Thou'rt speaking of thyself!
I am on my guard, however: no surprise.

What! he was mad?

ORDONIO.

What did the Valdez? I am proud of the name,
Since he dared do it.-

[ORDONIO grasps his sword, and turns off f
ISIDORE; then after a pause returns.

Our links burn dimly.

ISIDORE.

[Then to ORDONIO. A dark tale darkly finish'd! Nay, my Lord!

Tell what he did.

ORDONIO.

That which his wisdom prompted

All men seem'd mad to him! He made that Traitor meet him in this cavern,

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Now this is excellent, and warms the blood! Why didst thou look round? My heart was drawing back, drawing me back

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And claims that life, my pity robb'd her of

VALDEZ.

Hush, thoughtless woman!

TERESA.

Nay, it wakes within me

Now will I kill thee, thankless slave! and count it More than a woman's spirit.

Among my comfortable thoughts hereafter.

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alone.

ORDONIO.

VALDEZ.

No more of this

What if Monviedro or his creatures hear us!
I dare not listen to you.

TERESA

My honor'd Lord,
These were my Alvar's lessons; and whene'er
I bend me o'er his portrait, I repeat them,
As if to give a voice to the mute image.

VALDEZ.

We have mourn'd for Alvar. I have hurl'd him down the chasm! Treason for trea- Of his sad fate there now remains no doubt.

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Heart-chilling Superstition! thou canst glaze
Even Pity's eye with her own frozen tear.
In vain I urge the tortures that await him;
Even Selma, reverend guardian of my childhood,
My second mother, shuts her heart against me!
Well, I have won from her what most imports
The present need, this secret of the dungeon,
Known only to herself. - A Moor! a Sorcerer!
No, I have faith, that Nature ne'er permitted
Baseness to wear a form so noble. True,
I doubt not, that Ordonio had suborn'd him
To act some part in some unholy fraud;
As little doubt, that for some unknown purpose
He hath baffled his suborner, terror-struck him,
And that Ordonio meditates revenge!

But my resolve is fix'd! myself will rescue him,
And learn if haply he know aught of Alvar.

Enter VALDEZ.

VALDEZ.

Still sad?and gazing at the massive door

Of that fell Dungeon which thou ne'er hadst sight of,
Save what, perchance, thy infant fancy shaped it,
When the nurse still'd thy cries with unmeant threats.
Now by my faith, Girl! this same wizard haunts thee!
A stately man, and eloquent and tender-

[With a sneer. Who then need wonder if a lady sighs

Even at the thought of what these stern Dominicans-
TERESA (with solemn indignation).

The horror of their ghastly punishments
Doth so o'ertop the height of all compassion,
That I should feel too little for mine enemy,
If it were possible I could feel more,
Even though the dearest inmates of our household
Were doom'd to suffer them. That such things are-

• Vide Appendix, Note 2.

Have I no other son?

TERESA.

Speak not of him!
That low imposture! That mysterious picture!
If this be madness, must I wed a madman?
And if not madness, there is mystery,
And guilt doth lurk behind it.

VALDEZ.

Is this well?

TERESA.

Yes, it is truth: saw you his countenance?
How rage, remorse, and scorn, and stupid fear,
Displaced each other with swift interchanges?
O that I had indeed the sorcerer's power!
I would call up before thine eyes the image
Of my betrothed Alvar, of thy first-born!
His own fair countenance, his kingly forehead,
His tender smiles, love's day-dawn on his lips!
That spiritual and almost heavenly light
In his commanding eye-his mien heroic,
Virtue's own native heraldry! to man
Genial, and pleasant to his guardian angel.
Whene'er he gladden'd, how the gladness spread
Wide round him! and when oft with swelling tears,
Flash'd through by indignation, he bewail'd
The wrongs of Belgium's martyr'd patriots,
Oh, what a grief was there for joy to envy,
Or gaze upon enamour'd!

O my father!

Recall that morning when we knelt together,
And thou didst bless our loves! O even now,
Even now, my sire! to thy mind's eye present him,
As at that moment he rose up before thee,
Stately, with beaming look! Place, place beside him
Ordonio's dark perturbed countenance!
Then bid me (Oh thou couldst not) bid me turn
From him, the joy, the triumph of our kind!
To take in exchange that brooding man, who never
Lifts up his eye from the earth, unless to scowl.

VALDEZ.

Ungrateful woman! I have tried to stifle
An old man's passion! was it not enough
That thou hadst made my son a restless man,
Banish'd his health, and half unhinged his reason;
But that thou wilt insult him with suspicion?
And toil to blast his honor? I am old,

A comfortless old man!

TERESA.

O Grief! to hear
Hateful entreaties from a voice we love!

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