Torture me not! But Alvar-Oh of Alvar?
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.
"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).
"O sorrow! that a father's voice should say this, A father's heart believe it!
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-
[Turning off, aloud, but yet as to himself. And the blood dances freely through its channels!
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).
O Heavens! my portrait!
And he did grasp it in his death-pang!
Off, false Demon,
That beat'st thy black wings close above my head!
[ORDONIO enters with the keys of the dungeon
in his hand.
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.
[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.
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
[Retires out of sight. Of moist-eyed Penitence 't is like a dream!
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.
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,
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-
[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?
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 the son of Valdez, murder'd. forcing his tones into an expression of Leave all to me. Nay, whither, gentle Lady?
Teresa? or the Phantom of 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?
There, where Ordonio likewise would fain lie!
In the sleep-compelling earth, in unpierced dark-
An inward day that never, never sets,
Glares round the soul, and mocks the closing
Both VALDEZ and ORDONIO.
Whither?
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.
eye-Suits that a high-born maiden's modesty?
O folly and shame! Tempt not my rage, Teresa!
Over his rocky grave the Fir-grove sighs
A lulling ceaseless dirge! "T is well with HIM.
[Strides off in agitation towards the altar, but Hopeless, I fear no
returns as VALDEZ is speaking.
TERESA (recoiling with the expression appropriate to
the passion).
[TO VALDEZ.
Didst thou hear him say it?
Dead! dead already! what care we for the dead? Glares in the red flame of his hunter's torch!
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 sea,
And now 't is gone! All shall be done to-night.
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 overn out of sight. ISIDORE alone, an extinguished torch in his hand.
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
[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 lightning
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
You smile! alas, even smiles look ghastly here! My Lord, I pray you, go yourself and view it.
It must have shot some pleasant feelings through you.
If every atom of a dead man's flesh
Should creep, each one with a particular life,
Yet all as cold as ever-'t was just so!
Or had it drizzled needle points of frost
Upon a feverish head made suddenly bald—
ORDONIO (interrupting him).
Why, Isidore,
I blush for thy cowardice. It might have startled,
grant you, even a brate man for a moment-
But such a panic-
I could have sate whole hours beside that chasm,
When a boy, my Lord!
Push'd in huge stones, and heard them strike and
rattle
Low down, and listen'd till the heavy fragments
Against its horrid sides: then hung my head
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.
Art thou more coward now?
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.
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,
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-
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?
Why, that's my case; and yet the soul recoils from it He gave a substance and reality
Tis so with me at least. But you, perhaps,
Have sterner feelings?
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 't is 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.
What boots it, who or when?
Hang up thy torch-I'll tell his tale to thee.
To that wild fancy of a possible thing.-
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?
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.
He was a man different from other men,
And he despised them, yet revered himself.
He? He despised? Thou'rt speaking of thyself!
I am on my guard, however: no surprise.
What did the Valdez? I am proud of the name,
Since he dared do it.-
[ORDONIO grasps his sword, and turns off from
ISIDORE; then after a pause returns.
Our links burn dimly.
[Then to ORDONIO. A dark tale darkly finish'd! Nay, my Lord!
That which his wisdom prompted
All men seem'd mad to him! He made that Traitor meet him in this cavern,
With weak and womanish scruples. Now my Ven
Beckons me onwards with a warrior's mien,
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.
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?
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.
Soll 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
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.
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!
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.
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!
O Grief! to hear Hateful entreaties from a voice we love!
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