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TERESA.

Torture me not! But Alvar-Oh of Alvar?

VALDEZ.

How often would he plead for these Morescoes!
The brood accurst! remorseless, coward murderers!
TERESA (wildly).

So so?-I comprehend you-He is

"He that can bring the dead to life again."
But now he is satisfied, I plann'd this scheme
To work a full conviction on the culprit,
And he intrusts him wholly to my keeping.

VALDEZ.

'Tis well, my son! But have you yet discover'd
Where is Teresa? what those speeches meant-
Pride, and Hypocrisy, and Guilt, and Cunning?
He is no more! Then when the wizard fix'd his eye on you,
And you, I know not why, look'd pale and trem-

VALDEZ (with averted countenance).

TERESA.

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[Turning off, aloud, but yet as to himself. And the blood dances freely through its channels!

Accurst assassins!

Disarm'd, o'erpower'd, despairing of defence,

At his bared breast he seem'd to grasp some relict More dear than was his life

TERESA (with a faint shriek).

[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

O Heavens! my portrait! His "own full heart"-'t were good to see its color.

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Hush! who comes here? The wizard Moor's employer!

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 trembleThere I may sit unmark'd-a moment will restore me. [Retires out of sight.

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VALDEZ.

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

[Averting himself

ORDONIO.

Is it so?

Almost, I fear, it hath unhinged his brain. ORDONIO (now in soliloquy, and now addressing 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). Starts up bewilder'd and talks idly.

:

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.

(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.

Unknown, perhaps, ORDONIO (checking the feeling of surprise, and Captured, yet, as the son of Valdez, murder'd. forcing his tones into an expression of Leave all to me. Nay, whither, gentle Lady?

playful courtesy).

Teresa? or the Phantom of Teresa?

TERESA.

Alas! the Phantom only, if in truth

The substance of her Being, her Life's life,
Have ta'en its flight through Alvar's death-wound-
(A pause.)
Where-
(Even coward Murder grants the dead a grave)
O tell me, Valdez!-answer me, Ordonio!
Where lies the corse of my betrothed husband?

ORDONIO.

There, where Ordonio likewise would fain lie!
In the sleep-compelling earth, in unpierced dark-
ness!

For while we LIVE

An inward day that never, never sets,
Glares round the soul, and mocks the closing

lids!

Over his rocky grave the Fir-grove sighs
A lulling ceaseless dirge! "T is well with HIM.

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

TERESA.

[Strides off in agitation towards the altar, but Hopeless, I fear no human being's rage.

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This, then, is my reward! and I must love her?
Scorn'd! shudder'd at! yet love her still? yes!
yes!

By the deep feelings of Revenge and Hate
I will still love her-woo her-win her too!
(A pause) Isidore safe and silent, and the portrait
Found on the wizard-he, belike, self-poison'd
To escape the crueller flames- -My soul shouts
triumph!

The mine is undermined! Blood! Blood! Blood!
They thirst for thy blood! thy blood, Ordonio!
[A pause

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

Dead! dead already! what care we for the dead? Glares in the red flame of his hunter's torch!

VALDEZ (to TERESA).

Pity him! soothe him! disenchant his spirit!
These supernatural shows, this strange disclosure,
And this too fond affection, which still broods
O'er Alvar's fate, and still burns to avenge it-
These, struggling with his hopeless love for you,
Distemper him, and give reality
To the creatures of his fancy-

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 sca,
And now 't is gone! All shall be done to-night.

[Ex.

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 sleepAny 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 moonlight: returns after a minute's elapse, in an ecstasy of fear.

A hellish pit! The very same I dreamt of!
I was just in-and those damn'd fingers of ice
Which clutch'd my hair up! Ha!-what's that-it

moved.

[ISIDORE stands staring at another recess in the cavern. In the mean time ORDONIO enters with a torch, and halloos to ISIDORE.

I swear that I saw something moving there!
The moonshine came and went like a flash of light-
ning-

I swear, I saw it move,

That my foot hung aslant adown the edge.
Was it my own fear?

Fear too hath its instincts!
(And yet such dens as these are wildly told of,
And yet are Beings that live, yet not for the eye)
An arm of frost above and from behind me
Pluck'd up and snatch'd me backward. Merciful
Heaven!

You smile! alas, even smiles look ghastly here!
My Lord, I pray you, go yourself and view it.

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ORDONIO (goes into the recess, then returns, and with It were too bad a prison-house for goblins.

Props on the long lank weed, that grows beneath: And the weed nods and drips.

ISIDORE (forcing a laugh faintly). A jest to laugh at! It was not that which scared me, good my Lord.

What scared you, then?"

But first permit me!
[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,

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-

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

ORDONIO.

And marking that the moonlight came from thence, Had you been here before?

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,

ISIDORE.

Strange enough!

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

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ORDONIO.

ISIDORE.

I have a prattler three years old, my Lord!
In truth he is my darling. As I went
From forth my door, he made a moan in sleep-
But I am talking idly-pray proceed!
And what did this man?

ORDONIO.

With his human hand

He gave a substance and reality

Why, that's my case; and yet the soul recoils from it-To that wild fancy of a possible thing.-
"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,
round the heart:
Collects the guilt, and crowds
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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Who? when? my Lord?

ORDONIO.

What boots it, who or when?

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

Well it was done!

[Then very wildly.
Why babblest thou of guilt?
The deed was done, and it pass'd fairly off.
And he whose tale I tell thee-dost thou listen?

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ORDONIO.

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.

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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

With weak and womanish scruples. Now my Ven

geance

Beckons me onwards with a warrior's mien,

VALDEZ.

Hush, thoughtless woman!

TERESA.

Nay, it wakes within me

And claims that life, my pity robb'd her of--
Now will I kill thee, thankless slave! and count it More than a woman's spirit.
Among my comfortable thoughts hereafter.

ISIDORE.

And all my little ones fatherless

Die thou first.

[They fight; ORDONIO disarms ISIDORE, and in disarming him throws his sword up that recess opposite to which they were standing. ISIDORE hurries into the recess with his torch, ORDONIO follows him; a loud cry of "Traitor! Monster! "" is heard from the cavern, and in a moment ORDONIO returns alone.

ORDONIO.

VALDEZ.

No more of thisWhat if Monviedro or his creatures hear us! I dare not listen to you.

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-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. Have I no other son?

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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 iny 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.

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.

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