Three years ago, three years this very week, You left him at Almeria.
MONVIEDRO.
Palpably false !
This very week, three years ago, my Lord
(You needs must recollect it by your wound),
You were at sea, and there engaged the pirates,
The murderers doubtless of your brother Alvar!
[TERESA looks at MONVIEDRO with disgust and
horror. ORDONIO's appearance to be collected
from what follows.
MONVIEDRO (to VALDEZ, and pointing at ORDONIO). What! is he ill, my Lord? how strange he looks! VALDEZ (angrily).
You press'd upon him too abruptly, father,
The fate of one, on whom, you know, he doted.
ORDONIO (starting as in sudden agitation).
O Heavens! I? I-doted? (then recovering himself).
Yes! I doted on him.
[ORDONIO walks to the end of the stage,
VALDEZ follows, soothing him.
TERESA (her eye following ORDONIO).
I do not, can not, love him. Is my heart hard?
Is my heart hard? that even now the thought
Should force itself upon me?-Yet I feel it!
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I was a Moresco! They cast me, then a young and nursing mother, Into a dungeon of their prison-house, Where was no bed, no fire, no ray of light, No touch, no sound of comfort! The black air, It was a toil to breathe it! when the door, Slow opening at the appointed hour, disclosed One human countenance, the lamp's red flame Cower'd as it enter'd, and at once sunk down. Oh miserable! by that lamp to see
My infant quarrelling with the coarse hard bread Brought daily for the little wretch was sicklyMy rage had dried away its natural food
In darkness I remain'd-the dull bell counting,
If aught enforce you to concealment, Sir
[ALVAR sinks down and hides his face in his robe.
See, we have disturb'd him.
[Approaches nearer to him.
I pray you think us friends-uncowl your face,
For you seem faint, and the night breeze blows healing
I pray you think us friends!
ALVAR (raising his head).
Calm, very calm!
"Tis all too tranquil for reality! And she spoke to me with her innocent voice, That voice, that innocent voice! She is no traitress,
Let us retire. (Haughtily to ALHADRA).
[They advance to the front of the Stage. ALHADRA (with scorn).
He is indeed a Christian.
She deems me dead, yet wears no mourning garinent!. Why should my brother's-wife-wear mourning garments?
[To TERESA. Your pardon, noble dame! that I disturb'd you: I had just started from a frightful dream.
I dreamt I had a friend, on whom I leant
With blindest trust, and a betrothed maid,
Whom I was wont to call not mine, but me:
For mine own self seem'd nothing, lacking her.
This maid so idolized that trusted friend
Dishonor'd in my absence, soul and body!
Fear, following guilt, tempted to blacker guilt,
And murderers were suborn'd against my life.
But by my looks, and most impassion'd words,
I roused the virtues that are dead in no man,
Even in the assassins' hearts! they made their terms
And thank'd me for redeeming them from murder.
You are lost in thought: hear him no more, sweet Lady!
From morn to night I am myself a dreamer, And slight things bring on me the idle mood! Well, Sir, what happen'd then?
On a rude rock, A rock, methought, fast by a grove of firs, Whose thready leaves to the low breathing gale Made a soft sound most like the distant ocean,
No start, no jealousy of stirring conscience!
And she referr'd to me-fondly, methought!
Could she walk here if she had been a traitress?
Here, where we play'd together in our childhood?
Here, where we plighted vows? where her cold
cheek
I stay'd as though the hour of death were pass'd,
And I were sitting in the world of spirits-
For all things seem'd unreal! There I sate-
The dews fell clammy, and the night descended,
Black, sultry, close! and ere the midnight hour,
A storm came on, mingling all sounds of fear,
That woods, and sky, and mountains, seem'd one Received my last kiss, when with suppress'd feelings
There is no room in this heart for puling love-tales.
TERESA (lifts up her veil, and advances to ALVAR).
Stranger, farewell! I guess not who you are,
Nor why you so address'd your tale to me.
Your mien is noble, and, I own, perplex'd me
With obscure memory of something past,
Which still escaped my efforts, or presented
Tricks of a fancy pamper'd with long wishing.
If, as it sometimes happens, our rude startling
Whilst your full heart was shaping out its dream,
Drove you to this, your not ungentle wildness-
You have my sympathy, and so farewell'
But if some undiscover'd wrongs oppress you,
And you need strength to drag them into light,
The generous Valdez, and my Lord Ordonio,
Have arm and will to aid a noble sufferer;
Nor shall you want my favorable pleading.
[Exeunt TERESA and ALHADRA.
ALVAR (alone).
"Tis strange! It cannot be! my Lord Ordonio!
Her Lord Ordonio! Nay, I will not do it!
I cursed him once-and one curse is enough!
She had fainted in my arms? It cannot be!
"Tis not in Nature! I will die, believing
That I shall meet her where no evil is,
No treachery, no cup dash'd from the lips.
I'll haunt this scene no more! live she in peace!
Her husband-ay, her husband! May this angel
New mould his canker'd heart! Assist me, Heaven,
That I may pray for my poor guilty brother! [Erit
A wild and mountainous Country. ORDONIO and IsıDORE are discovered, supposed at a little distance from ISIDORE's house.
Here we may stop: your house distinct in view,
Yet we secured from listeners.
Now indeed
My house! and it looks cheerful as the clusters
Basking in sunshine on yon vine-clad rock,
That over-brows it! Patron! Friend! Preserver!
Thrice have you saved my life. Once in the battle
You gave it me: next rescued me from suicide,
When for my follies I was made to wander,
With mouths to feed, and not a morsel for them
Now, but for you, a dungeon's slimy stones
Had been my bed and pillow.
Good Isidore!
Why this to me? It is enough, you know it.
A common trick of Gratitude, my Lord,
Seeking to ease her own full heart-
A debt repaid ceases to be a debt.
You have it in your power to serve me greatly.
And how, my Lord? I pray you to name the thing.
I would climb up an ice-glaz'd precipice
To pluck a weed you fancied!
ORDONIO (with embarrassment and hesitation).
Why-that-Lady-
"Tis now three years, my Lord, since last I saw you
How bad she look'd, and pale! but not like guilt-Have you a son, my Lord ?
And her calm tones-sweet as a song of mercy!
If the bad spirit retain'd his angel's voice,
Hell scarce were Hell. And why not innocent?
Who meant to murder me, might well cheat her?
But ere she married him, he had stain'd her honor;
Ah! there I am hamper'd. What if this were a lie
Framed by the assassin? Who should tell it him,
If it were truth? Ordonio would not tell him.
Yet why one lie? all else, I know, was truth.
I can bear this, and any thing more grievous
From you, my Lord—but how can I serve you here? "T was a well-sounding word-what have you done
Why, you can utter with a solemn gesture
Oracular sentences of deep no-meaning,
Wear a quaint garment, make mysterious antics
I am dull, my Lord! I do not comprehend you.
In blunt terms, you can play the sorcerer.
She hath no faith in Holy Church, 't is true:
Her lover school'd her in some newer nonsense!
Yet still a tale of spirits works upon her.
She is a lone enthusiast, sensitive,
Shivers, and cannot keep the tears in her eye:
And such do love the marvellous too well
Not to believe it. We will wind up her fancy
With a strange music, that she knows not of
With fumes of frankincense, and mummery,
Then leave, as one sure token of his death,
That portrait, which from off the dead man's neck
I bade thee take, the trophy of thy conquest.
Will that be a sure sign?
Beyond suspicion.
Fondly caressing him, her favor'd lover
(By some base spell he had bewitch'd her senses),
She whisper'd such dark fears of me, forsooth,
As made this heart pour gall into my veins.
And as she coyly bound it round his neck,
She made him promise silence; and now holds
The secret of the existence of this portrait,
Known only to her lover and herself.
But I had traced her, stolen unnoticed on them,
And unsuspected saw and heard the whole.
But now I should have cursed the man who told me
You could ask aught, my Lord, and I refuse-
But this I cannot do.
ISIDORE (with stammering).
He fought us valiantly, and wounded all;
In fine, compell'd a parley.
Why-why, my Lord!
You know you told me that the lady loved you,
Had loved you with incautious tenderness;
That if the young man, her betrothed husband,
Returned, yourself, and she, and the honor of both
Must perish. Now, though with no tenderer scruples
Than those which being native to the heart,
Than those, my Lord, which merely being a man-
ORDONIO (aloud, though to express his contempt
he speaks in the third person).
This fellow is a Man-he kill'd for hire
One whom he knew not, yet has tender scruples!
[Then turning to ISIDORE.
These doubts, these fears, thy whine, thy stammer-
ing-
Pish, fool! thou blunder'st through the book of guilt, Spelling thy villany.
ORDONIO (sighing, as if lost in thought). Alvar! brother!
Son of Lord Valdez! I had well-nigh fainted.
At length I said (if that indeed I said it,
And that no Spirit made my tongue its organ),
That woman is dishonor'd by that brother,
And he the man who sent us to destroy you.
He drove a thrust at me in rage. I told him,
He wore her portrait round his neck. He look'd
As he had been made of the rock that propt his
back-
Ay, just as you look now-only less ghastly!
At length, recovering from his trance, he threw
His sword away, and bade us take his life,
It was not worth his keeping.
Oh blood-hounds! may eternal wrath flame round you!
Doubtless you question'd him?
"Twas my intentica
Having first traced him homeward to his haunt.
But lo! the stern Dominican, whose spies
Lurk everywhere, already (as it seem'd)
Had given commission to his apt familiar
To seek and sound the Moor; who now returning
Was by this trusty agent stopp'd midway.
I, dreading fresh suspicion if found near him
In that lone place, again conceal'd myself,
Yet within hearing. So the Moor was question'd,
And in your name, as lord of this domain.
Proudly he answer'd, "Say to the Lord Ordonio,
He that can bring the dead to life again!"
What have I done but that which nature destined,
Or the blind elements stirr'd up within me?
Ay, all of him is strange.
He call'd himself a Christian, yet he wears
The Moorish robes, as if he courted death.
ORDONIO.
Where does this wizard live?
ISIDORE (pointing to the distance).
You see that brooklet
Trace its course backward: through a narrow opening
It leads you to the place.
How shall I know it?
ISIDORE.
You cannot err. It is a small green dell
Built all around with high off-sloping hills,
And from its shape our peasants aptly call it
If good were meant, why were we made these Be- The Giant's Cradle. There's a lake in the midst,
Some of your servants know me, I am certain.
There's some sense in that scruple; but we'll mask
And round its banks tall wood that branches over,
And makes a kind of faery forest grow
Down in the water. At the further end
A puny cataract falls on the lake;
And there, a curious sight! you see its shadow
For ever curling like a wreath of smoke,
Up through the foliage of those faery trees.
His cot stands opposite. You cannot miss it.
ORDONIO (in retiring stops suddenly at the edge of the
scene, and then turning round to ISIDORE).
Ha!-Who lurks there? Have we been overheard?
There, where the smooth high wall of slate-rock glit-
'Neath those tall stones, which, propping each the
Form a mock portal with their pointed arch!
Pardon my smiles! "T is a poor Idiot Boy,
Who sits in the sun, and twirls a bough about,
His weak eyes seethed in most unmeaning tears.
And so he sits, swaying his cone-like head:
And, staring at his bough from morn to sun-se,
Who as it seem'd was gathering herbs and wild flow-See-saws his voice in inarticulate noises!
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