Act I…

Act I

Enter stealthily KARSHOOK, RAGHIB, AYOOB, and other initiated Druses, each as he enters casting off a robe that conceals his distinctive black vest and white turban; then, as giving a loose to exultation,--

Karshook. The moon is carried off in purple fire: Day breaks at last! Break glory, with the day, On Djabal's dread incarnate mystery Now ready to resume its pristine shape Of Hakeem, as the Khalif vanished erst In what seemed death to uninstructed eyes, On red Mokattam's verge--our Founder's flesh, As he resumes our Founder's function!

Raghib. --Death Sweep to the Christian Prefect that enslaved So long us sad Druse exiles o'er the sea!

Ayoob.--Most joy be thine, O Mother-mount! Thy brood Returns to thee, no outcasts as we left, But thus--but thus! Behind, our Prefect's corse; Before, a presence like the morning--thine, Absolute Djabal late,--God Hakeem now That day breaks!

Kar. Off then, with disguise at last! As from our forms this hateful garb we strip, Lose every tongue its glozing accent too, Discard each limb the ignoble gesture! Cry, 'Tis the Druse Nation, warders on our Mount Of the world's secret, since the birth of time, --No kindred slips, no offsets from thy stock, No spawn of Christians are we, Prefect, we Who rise ...

Ay. Who shout ...

Ragh. Who seize, a first-fruits, ha-- Spoil of the spoiler! Brave!

[They begin to tear down, and to dispute for, the decorations of the hall.

Kar. Hold!

Ay. --Mine, I say; And mine shall it continue!

Kar. Just this fringe! Take anything beside! Lo, spire on spire, Curl serpentwise wreathed columns to the top O' the roof, and hide themselves mysteriously Among the twinkling lights and darks that haunt Yon cornice! Where the huge veil, they suspend Before the Prefect's chamber of delight, Floats wide, then falls again as if its slave, The scented air, took heart now, and anon Lost heart to buoy its breadths of gorgeousness Above the gloom they droop in--all the porch Is jewelled o'er with frostwork charactery; And, see, yon eight-point cross of white flame, winking Hoar-silvery like some fresh-broke marble stone: Raze out the Rhodian cross there, so thou leav'st me This single fringe!

Ay. Ha, wouldst thou, dog-fox? Help! --Three hand-breadths of gold fringe, my son was set To twist, the night he died!

Kar. Nay, hear the knave! And I could witness my one daughter borne, A week since, to the Prefect's couch, yet fold These arms, be mute, lest word of mine should mar Our Master's work, delay the Prefect here A day, prevent his sailing hence for Rhodes-- How know I else?--Hear me denied my right By such a knave!

Ragh. [Interposing.] Each ravage for himself! Booty enough! On, Druses! Be there found Blood and a heap behind us; with us, Djabal Turned Hakeem; and before us, Lebanon! Yields the porch? Spare not! There his minions dragged Thy daughter, Karshook, to the Prefect's couch! Ayoob! Thy son, to soothe the Prefect's pride, Bent o'er that task, the death-sweat on his brow, Carving the spice-tree's heart in scroll-work there! Onward in Djabal's name!

(As the tumult is at height, enter KHALIL. A pause and silence.)

Khalil. Was it for this, Djabal hath summoned you? Deserve you thus A portion in to-day's event? What, here-- When most behoves your feet fall soft, your eyes Sink low, your tongues lie still,--at Djabal's side, Close in his very hearing, who, perchance, Assumes e'en now God Hakeem's dreaded shape,-- Dispute you for these gauds?

Ay. How say'st thou, Khalil? Doubtless our Master prompts thee! Take the fringe, Old Karshook! I supposed it was a day ...

Kha. For pillage?

Kar. Hearken, Khalil! Never spoke A boy so like a song-bird; we avouch thee Prettiest of all our Master's instruments Except thy bright twin-sister; thou and Anael Challenge his prime regard: but we may crave (Such nothings as we be) a portion too Of Djabal's favor; in him we believed, His bound ourselves, him moon by moon obeyed, Kept silence till this daybreak--so, may claim Reward: who grudges me my claim?

Ay. To-day Is not as yesterday!

Ragh. Stand off!

Kha. Rebel you? Must I, the delegate of Djabal, draw His wrath on you, the day of our Return?

Other Druses. Wrench from their grasp the fringe! Hounds! must the earth Vomit her plagues on us through thee?--and thee? Plague me not, Khalil, for their fault!

Kha. Oh, shame! Thus breaks to-day on you, the mystic tribe Who, flying the approach of Osman, bore Our faith, a merest spark, from Syria's ridge, Its birthplace, hither! "Let the sea divide These hunters from their prey," you said; "and safe In this dim islet's virgin solitude Tend we our faith, the spark, till happier time Fan it to fire; till Hakeem rise again, According to his word that, in the flesh Which faded on Mokattam ages since, He, at our extreme need, would interpose, And, reinstating all in power and bliss, Lead us himself to Lebanon once more." Was't not thus you departed years ago, Ere I was born?

Druses. 'T was even thus, years ago.

Kha. And did you call--(according to old laws Which bid us, lest the sacred grow profane, Assimilate ourselves in outward rites With strangers fortune makes our lords, and live As Christian with the Christian, Jew with Jew Druse only with the Druses)--did you call Or no, to stand 'twixt you and Osman's rage, (Mad to pursue e'en hither through the sea The remnant of our tribe,) a race self vowed To endless warfare with his hordes and him, The White-cross Knights of the adjacent Isle?

Kar. And why else rend we down, wrench up, rase out? These Knights of Rhodes we thus solicited For help, bestowed on us a fiercer pest Than aught we fled--their Prefect; who began His promised mere paternal governance, By a prompt massacre of all our Sheikhs Able to thwart the Order in its scheme Of crushing, with our nation's memory, Each chance of our return, and taming us Bondslaves to Rhodes forever--all, he thinks To end by this day's treason.

Kha. Say I not? You, fitted to the Order's purposes, Your Sheikhs cut off, your rights, your garb proscribed, Must yet receive one degradation more; The Knights at last throw off the mask--transfer, As tributary now and appanage, This islet they are but protectors of, To their own ever-craving liege, the Church, Who licenses all crimes that pay her thus. You, from their Prefect, were to be consigned (Pursuant of I know not what vile pact) To the Knights' Patriarch, ardent to outvie His predecessor in all wickedness. When suddenly rose Djabal in the midst, Djabal, the man in semblance, but our God Confessed by signs and portents. Ye saw fire Bicker round Djabal, heard strange music flit Bird-like about his brow?

Druses. We saw--we heard! Djabal is Hakeem, the incarnate Dread, The phantasm Khalif, King of Prodigies!

Kha. And as he said has not our Khalif done, And so disposed events (from land to land Passing invisibly) that when, this morn, The pact of villany complete, there comes This Patriarch's Nuncio with this Master's Prefect Their treason to consummate,--each will face For a crouching handful, an uplifted nation; For simulated Christians, confessed Druses; And, for slaves past hope of the Mother-mount, Freedmen returning there 'neath Venice' flag; That Venice which, the Hospitallers' foe, Grants us from Candia escort home at price Of our relinquished isle, Rhodes counts her own-- Venice, whose promised argosies should stand Toward harbor: is it now that you, and you, And you, selected from the rest to bear The burden of the Khalif's secret, further To-day's event, entitled by your wrongs, And witness in the Prefect's hall his fate-- That you dare clutch these gauds? Ay, drop them!

Kar. True, Most true, all this; and yet, may one dare hint, Thou art the youngest of us?--though employed Abundantly as Djabal's confidant, Transmitter of his mandates, even now. Much less, whene'er beside him Anael graces The cedar throne, his queen-bride, art thou like To occupy its lowest step that day! Now, Khalil, wert thou checked as thou aspirest, Forbidden such or such an honor,--say, Would silence serve so amply?

Kha. Karshook thinks I covet honors? Well, nor idly thinks! Honors? I have demanded of them all The greatest!

Kar. I supposed so.

Kha. Judge, yourselves! Turn, thus: 'tis in the alcove at the back Of yonder columned porch, whose entrance now The veil hides, that our Prefect holds his state, Receives the Nuncio, when the one, from Rhodes, The other lands from Syria; there they meet. Now, I have sued with earnest prayers ...

Kar. For what Shall the Bride's brother vainly sue?

Kha. That mine-- Avenging in one blow a myriad wrongs --Might be the hand to slay the Prefect there! Djabal reserves that office for himself. [A silence. Thus far, as youngest of you all, I speak --Scarce more enlightened than yourselves; since, near As I approach him, nearer as I trust Soon to approach our Master, he reveals Only the God's power, not the glory yet. Therefore I reasoned with you: now, as servant To Djabal, bearing his authority, Hear me appoint your several posts! Till noon None see him save myself and Anael: once The deed achieved, our Khalif, casting off The embodied Awe's tremendous mystery, The weakness of the flesh disguise, resumes His proper glory, ne'er to fade again.

(Enter a Druse.)

The Druse. Our Prefect lands from Rhodes!--without a sign That he suspects aught since he left our Isle; Nor in his train a single guard beyond The few he sailed with hence: so have we learned From Loys.

Kar. Loys? Is not Loys gone Forever?

Ay. Loys, the Frank Knight, returned?

The Druse. Loys, the boy, stood on the leading prow Conspicuous in his gay attire, and leapt Into the surf the foremost. Since day-dawn I kept watch to the Northward; take but note Of my poor vigilance to Djabal!

Kha. Peace! Thou, Karshook, with thy company, receive The Prefect as appointed: see, all keep The wonted show of servitude: announce His entry here by the accustomed peal Of trumpets, then await the further pleasure Of Djabal! (Loys back, whom Djabal sent To Rhodes that we might spare the single Knight Worth sparing!)

(Enter a second Druse.)

The Druse. I espied it first! Say, I First spied the Nuncio's galley from the South! Said'st thou a Crossed-keys' flag would flap the mast? It nears apace! One galley and no more. If Djabal chance to ask who spied the flag, Forget not, I it was!

Kha. Thou, Ayoob, bring The Nuncio and his followers hither! Break One rule prescribed, ye wither in your blood, Die at your fault!

(Enter a third Druse.)

The Druse. I shall see home, see home! --Shall banquet in the sombre groves again! Hail to thee, Khalil! Venice looms afar; The argosies of Venice, like a cloud, Bear up from Candia in the distance!

Kha. Joy! Summon our people, Raghib! Bid all forth! Tell them the long-kept secret, old and young! Set free the captive, let the trampled raise Their faces from the dust, because at length The cycle is complete, God Hakeem's reign Begins anew! Say, Venice for our guard, Ere night we steer for Syria! Hear you, Druses? Hear you this crowning witness to the claims Of Djabal? Oh, I spoke of hope and fear, Reward and punishment, because he bade Who has the right: for me, what should I say But, mar not those imperial lineaments, No majesty of all that rapt regard Vex by the least omission! Let him rise Without a check from you!

Druses. Let Djabal rise!

(Enter LOYS.--The Druses are silent.)

Loys. Who speaks of Djabal?--for I seek him, friends! [Aside.] Tu Dieu! 'T is as our Isle broke out in song For joy, its Prefect-incubus drops off To-day, and I succeed him in his rule! But no--they cannot dream of their good fortune! [Aloud.] Peace to you, Druses! I have tidings for you, But first for Djabal: where 's your tall bewitcher, With that small Arab thin-lipped silver-mouth?

Kha. [Aside to KAR.] Loys, in truth! Yet Djabal cannot err!

Kar. [To KHA.] And who takes charge of Loys? That 's forgotten, Despite thy wariness! Will Loys stand And see his comrades slaughtered?

Loys. [Aside.] How they shrink And whisper, with those rapid faces! What? The sight of me in their oppressors' garb Strikes terror to the simple tribe? God's shame On those that bring our Order ill repute! But all's at end now; better days begin For these mild mountaineers from over-sea: The timidest shall have in me no Prefect To cower at thus! [Aloud.] I asked for Djabal--

Kar. [Aside.] Better One lured him, ere he can suspect, inside The corridor; 't were easy to dispatch A youngster. [To LOYS.] Djabal passed some minutes since Through yonder porch, and ...

Kha. [Aside.] Hold! What, him dispatch? The only Christian of them all we charge No tyranny upon? Who,--noblest Knight Of all that learned from time to time their trade Of lust and cruelty among us,--heir To Europe's pomp, a truest child of pride,-- Yet stood between the Prefect and ourselves From the beginning? Loys, Djabal makes Account of, and precisely sent to Rhodes For safety? I take charge of him! [To LOYS.] Sir Loys,--

Loys. There, cousins! Does Sir Loys strike you dead?

Kha. [Advancing.] Djabal has intercourse with few or none Till noontide: but, your pleasure?

Loys. "Intercourse With few or none?"--(Ah, Khalil, when you spoke I saw not your smooth face! All health!--and health To Anael! How fares Anael?)--"Intercourse With few or none?" Forget you, I've been friendly With Djabal long ere you or any Druse? --Enough of him at Rennes, I think, beneath The Duke my father's roof! He'd tell by the hour, With fixed white eyes beneath his swarthy brow, Plausiblest stories ...

Kha. Stories, say you?--Ah, The quaint attire!

Loys. My dress for the last time! How sad I cannot make you understand, This ermine, o'er a shield, betokens me Of Bretagne, ancientest of provinces And noblest; and, what's best and oldest there, See, Dreux', our house's blazon, which the Nuncio Tacks to an Hospitaller's vest to-day!

Kha. The Nuncio we await? What brings you back From Rhodes, Sir Loys?

Loys. How you island-tribe Forget the world's awake while here you drowse! What brings me back? What should not bring me, rather! Our Patriarch's Nuncio visits you to-day-- Is not my year's probation out? I come To take the knightly vows.

Kha. What's that you wear?

Loys. This Rhodian cross? The cross your Prefect wore. You should have seen, as I saw, the full Chapter Rise, to a man, while they transferred this cross From that unworthy Prefect's neck to ... (fool-- My secret will escape me!) In a word, My year's probation passed, a Knight ere eve Am I; bound, like the rest, to yield my wealth To the common stock, to live in chastity, (We Knights espouse alone our Order's fame) --Change this gay weed for the black white-crossed gown, And fight to death against the Infidel --Not, therefore, against you, you Christians with Such partial difference only as befits The peacefullest of tribes. But Khalil, prithee, Is not the Isle brighter than wont to-day?

Kha. Ah, the new sword!

Loys. See now! You handle sword As 't were a camel-staff! Pull! That's my motto, Annealed "Pro fide," on the blade in blue.

Kha. No curve in it? Surely a blade should curve.

Loys. Straight from the wrist! Loose--it should poise itself!

Kha. [_Waving with irrepressible exultation the sword._] We are a nation, Loys, of old fame Among the mountains! Rights have we to keep With the sword too! [Remembering himself.] But I forget--you bid me Seek Djabal?

Loys. What! A sword's sight scares you not? (The People I will make of him and them! Oh let my Prefect-sway begin at once!) Bring Djabal--say, indeed, that come he must!

Kha. At noon seek Djabal in the Prefect's Chamber, And find ... [Aside.] Nay, 't is thy cursed race's token, Frank pride, no special insolence of thine! [Aloud.] Tarry, and I will do your bidding, Loys! [To the rest aside.] Now, forth you! I proceed to Djabal straight. Leave this poor boy, who knows not what he says! Oh will it not add joy to even thy joy, Djabal, that I report all friends were true?

[KHALIL goes, followed by the Druses.

Loys. Tu Dieu! How happy I shall make these Druses! Was 't not surpassingly contrived of me To get the long list of their wrongs by heart, Then take the first pretence for stealing off From these poor islanders, present myself Sudden at Rhodes before the noble Chapter, And (as best proof of ardor in its cause Which ere to-night will have become, too, mine) Acquaint it with this plague-sore in its body, This Prefect and his villanous career? The princely Synod! All I dared request Was his dismissal; and they graciously Consigned his very office to myself-- Myself may cure the Isle diseased! And well For them, they did so! Since I never felt How lone a lot, though brilliant, I embrace, Till now that, past retrieval, it is mine. To live thus, and thus die! Yet, as I leapt On shore, so home a feeling greeted me That I could half believe in Djabal's story, He used to tempt my father with, at Rennes-- And me, too, since the story brought me here-- Of some Count Dreux and ancestor of ours Who, sick of wandering from Bouillon's war, Left his old name in Lebanon. Long days At least to spend in the Isle! and, my news known An hour hence, what if Anael turn on me The great black eyes I must forget? Why, fool, Recall them, then? My business is with Djabal, Not Anael! Djabal tarries: if I seek him?-- The Isle is brighter than its wont to-day!

Act II

Enter DJABAL.

Dja. That a strong man should think himself a God! I--Hakeem? To have wandered through the world, Sown falsehood, and thence reaped now scorn, now faith, For my one chant with many a change, my tale Of outrage, and my prayer for vengeance--this Required, forsooth, no mere man's faculty, Naught less than Hakeem's? The persuading Loys To pass probation here: the getting access By Loys to the Prefect; worst of all, The gaining my tribe's confidence by fraud That would disgrace the very Frank,--a few Of Europe's secrets which subdue the flame, The wave,--to ply a simple tribe with these, Took Hakeem? And I feel this first to-day! Does the day break, is the hour imminent When one deed, when my whole life's deed, my deed Must be accomplished? Hakeem? Why the God? Shout, rather, "Djabal, Youssof's child, thought slain With his whole race, the Druses' Sheikhs, this Prefect Endeavored to extirpate--saved, a child, Returns from traversing the world, a man, Able to take revenge, lead back the march To Lebanon"--so shout, and who gainsays? But now, because delusion mixed itself Insensibly with this career, all 's changed! Have I brought Venice to afford us convoy? "True--but my jugglings wrought that!" Put I heart Into our people where no heart lurked?--"Ah, What cannot an impostor do!" Not this! Not do this which I do! Not bid avaunt Falsehood! Thou shalt not keep thy hold on me! --Nor even get a hold on me! 'T is now-- This day--hour--minute--'t is as here I stand On the accursed threshold of the Prefect, That I am found deceiving and deceived! And now what do I?--hasten to the few Deceived, ere they deceive the many--shout, "As I professed, I did believe myself! Say, Druses, had you seen a butchery-- If Ayoob, Karshook saw----Maani there Must tell you how I saw my father sink; My mother's arms twine still about my neck; I hear my brother shriek, here's yet the scar Of what was meant for my own death-blow--say, If you had woke like me, grown year by year Out of the tumult in a far-off clime, Would it be wondrous such delusion grew? I walked the world, asked help at every hand; Came help or no? Not this and this? Which helps When I returned with, found the Prefect here, The Druses here, all here but Hakeem's self, The Khalif of the thousand prophecies, Reserved for such a juncture,--could I call My mission aught but Hakeem's? Promised Hakeem More than performs the Djabal--you absolve? --Me, you will never shame before the crowd Yet happily ignorant?--Me, both throngs surround, The few deceived, the many unabused, --Who, thus surrounded, slay for you and them The Prefect, lead to Lebanon? No Khalif, But Sheikh once more! Mere Djabal--not" ...

(Enter KHALIL hastily.)

Kha. --God Hakeem! 'T is told! The whole Druse nation knows thee, Hakeem, As we! and mothers lift on high their babes Who seem aware, so glisten their great eyes, Thou hast not failed us; ancient brows are proud; Our elders could not earlier die, it seems, Than at thy coming! The Druse heart is thine! Take it! my lord and theirs, be thou adored!

Dja. [Aside.] Adored!--but I renounce it utterly!

Kha. Already are they instituting choirs And dances to the Khalif, as of old 'T is chronicled thou bad'st them.

Dja. [Aside.] I abjure it! 'T is not mine--not for me!

Kha. Why pour they wine Flavored like honey and bruised mountain-herbs, Or wear those strings of sun-dried cedar-fruit? Oh, let me tell thee--Esaad, we supposed Doting, is carried forth, eager to see The last sun rise on the Isle: he can see now! The shamed Druse women never wept before: They can look up when we reach home, they say. Smell!--sweet cane, saved in Lilith's breast thus long-- Sweet!--it grows wild in Lebanon. And I Alone do nothing for thee! 'T is my office Just to announce what well thou know'st--but thus Thou bidst me. At this self-same moment tend The Prefect, Nuncio and the Admiral Hither by their three sea-paths: nor forget Who were the trusty watchers!--thou forget? Like me, who do forget that Anael bade ...

Dja. [Aside.] Ay, Anael, Anael--is that said at last? Louder than all, that would be said, I knew! What does abjuring mean, confessing mean, To the people? Till that woman crossed my path, On went I, solely for my people's sake: I saw her, and I then first saw myself, And slackened pace: "If I should prove indeed Hakeem--with Anael by!"

Kha. [Aside.] Ah, he is rapt! Dare I at such a moment break on him Even to do my sister's bidding? Yes: The eyes are Djabal's and not Hakeem's yet, Though but till I have spoken this, perchance.

Dja. [Aside.] To yearn to tell her, and yet have no one Great heart's word that will tell her! I could gasp Doubtless one such word out, and die. [Aloud.] You said That Anael ...

Kha. ... Fain would see thee, speak with thee, Before thou change, discard this Djabal's shape She knows, for Hakeem's shape she is to know. Something to say that will not from her mind! I know not what--"Let him but come!" she said.

Dja. [Half apart.] My nation--all my Druses--how fare they? Those I must save, and suffer thus to save, Hold they their posts? Wait they their Khalif too?

Kha. All at the signal pant to flock around That banner of a brow!

Dja. [Aside.] And when they flock, Confess them this: and after, for reward, Be chased with howlings to her feet perchance! --Have the poor outraged Druses, deaf and blind, Precede me there, forestall my story there, Tell it in mocks and jeers! I lose myself! Who needs a Hakeem to direct him now? I need the veriest child--why not this child? [Turning abruptly to KHALIL. You are a Druse too, Khalil; you were nourished Like Anael with our mysteries: if she Could vow, so nourished, to love only one Who should avenge the Druses, whence proceeds Your silence? Wherefore made you no essay, Who thus implicitly can execute My bidding? What have I done, you could not? Who, knowing more than Anael the prostration Of our once lofty tribe, the daily life Of this detested ... Does he come, you say, This Prefect? All's in readiness?

Kha. The sword, The sacred robe, the Khalif's mystic tiar, Laid up so long, are all disposed beside The Prefect's chamber.

Dja. --Why did you despair?

Kha. I know our nation's state? Too surely know, As thou who speak'st to prove me! Wrongs like ours Should wake revenge: but when I sought the wronged And spoke,--"The Prefect stabbed your son-- arise! Your daughter, while you starve, eats shameless bread In his pavilion--then arise!"--my speech Fell idly: 't was, "Be silent, or worse fare! Endure till time 's slow cycle prove complete! Who may'st thou be that takest on thee to thrust Into this peril--art thou Hakeem?" No! Only a mission like thy mission renders All these obedient at a breath, subdues Their private passions, brings their wills to one!

Dja. You think so?

Kha. Even now--when they have witnessed Thy miracles--had I not threatened all With Hakeem's vengeance, they would mar the work, And couch ere this, each with his special prize, Safe in his dwelling, leaving our main hope To perish. No! When these have kissed thy feet At Lebanon, the past purged off, the present Clear,--for the future, even Hakeem's mission May end, and I perchance, or any youth, Shall rule them thus renewed.--I tutor thee!

Dja. And wisely. (He is Anael's brother, pure As Anael's self.) Go say, I come to her. Haste! I will follow you. [KHALIL goes. Oh, not confess To these, the blinded multitude--confess, Before at least the fortune of my deed Half authorize its means! Only to her Let me confess my fault, who in my path Curled up like incense from a Mage-king's tomb When he would have the wayfarer descend Through the earth's rift and bear hid treasure forth! How should child's-carelessness prove manhood's crime Till now that I, whose lone youth hurried past, Letting each joy 'scape for the Druses' sake, At length recover in one Druse all joy? Were her brow brighter, her eyes richer, still Would I confess! On the gulf's verge I pause. How could I slay the Prefect, thus and thus? Anael, be mine to guard me, not destroy! [Goes.

(Enter ANAEL, and MAANI who is assisting to array her in the ancient dress of the Druses.)

Anael. Those saffron vestures of the tabret-girls! Comes Djabal, think you?

Maani. Doubtless Djabal comes.

An. Dost thou snow-swathe thee kinglier, Lebanon, Than in my dreams?--Nay, all the tresses off My forehead! Look I lovely so? He says That I am lovely.

Maa. Lovely: nay, that hangs Awry.

An. You tell me how a khandjar hangs? The sharp side, thus, along the heart, see, marks The maiden of our class. Are you content For Djabal as for me?

Maa. Content, my child.

An. Oh mother, tell me more of him! He comes Even now--tell more, fill up my soul with him!

Maa. And did I not ... yes, surely ... tell you all?

An. What will be changed in Djabal when the Change Arrives? Which feature? Not his eyes!

Maa. 'T is writ Our Hakeem's eyes rolled fire and clove the dark Superbly.

An. Not his eyes! His voice perhaps? Yet that's no change; for a grave current lived --Grandly beneath the surface ever lived, That, scattering, broke as in live silver spray While ... ah, the bliss ... he would discourse to me In that enforced still fashion, word on word! 'T is the old current which must swell through that, For what least tone, Maani, could I lose? 'T is surely not his voice will change! --If Hakeem Only stood by! If Djabal, somehow, passed Out of the radiance as from out a robe; Possessed, but was not it! He lived with you? Well--and that morning Djabal saw me first And heard me vow never to wed but one Who saved my People--on that day ... proceed!

Maa. Once more, then: from the time of his return In secret, changed so since he left the Isle That I, who screened our Emir's last of sons, This Djabal, from the Prefect's massacre --Who bade him ne'er forget the child he was, --Who dreamed so long the youth he might become-- I knew not in the man that child; the man Who spoke alone of hope to save our tribe, How he had gone from land to land to save Our tribe--allies were sure, nor foes to dread; And much he mused, days, nights, alone he mused: But never till that day when, pale and worn As by a persevering woe, he cried "Is there not one Druse left me?"--and I showed The way to Khalil's and your hiding-place From the abhorred eye of the Prefect here, So that he saw you, heard you speak--till then, Never did he announce--(how the moon seemed To ope and shut, the while, above us both!) --His mission was the mission promised us; The cycle had revolved; all things renewing, He was lost Hakeem clothed in flesh to lead His children home anon, now veiled to work Great purposes: the Druses now would change!

An. And they have changed! And obstacles did sink, And furtherances rose! And round his form Played fire, and music beat her angel wings! My people, let me more rejoice, oh more For you than for myself! Did I but watch Afar the pageant, feel our Khalif pass, One of the throng, how proud were I--though ne'er Singled by Djabal's glance! But to be chosen His own from all, the most his own of all, To be exalted with him, side by side, Lead the exulting Druses, meet ... ah, how Worthily meet the maidens who await Ever beneath the cedars--how deserve This honor, in their eyes? So bright are they Who saffron-vested sound the tabret there, The girls who throng there in my dream! One hour And all is over: how shall I do aught That may deserve next hour's exalting?-- How?-- [Suddenly to MAANI. Mother, I am not worthy him! I read it Still in his eyes! He stands as if to tell me I am not, yet forbears. Why else revert To one theme ever?--how mere human gifts Suffice him in myself--whose worship fades, Whose awe goes ever off at his approach, As now, who when he comes ...

(DJABAL enters.)

Oh why is it I cannot kneel to you?

Dja. Rather, 't is I Should kneel to you, my Anael!

An. Even so! For never seem you--shall I speak the truth?-- Never a God to me! 'T is the Man's hand, Eye, voice! Oh, do you veil these to our people, Or but to me? To them, I think, to them! And brightness is their veil, shadow--my truth! You mean that I should never kneel to you --So, thus I kneel!

Dja. [Preventing her.] No--no! [Feeling the khandjar as he raises her. Ha, have you chosen ...

An. The khandjar with our ancient garb. But, Djabal, Change not, be not exalted yet! Give time That I may plan more, perfect more! My blood Beats, beats! [Aside.] Oh, must I then--since Loys leaves us Never to come again, renew in me These doubts so near effaced already--must I needs confess them now to Djabal?--own That when I saw that stranger, heard his voice, My faith fell, and the woeful thought flashed first That each effect of Djabal's presence, taken For proof of more than human attributes In him, by me whose heart at his approach Beat fast, whose brain while he was by swam round, Whose soul at his departure died away, --That every such effect might have been wrought In other frames, though not in mine, by Loys Or any merely mortal presence? Doubt Is fading fast: shall I reveal it now? How shall I meet the rapture presently, With doubt unexpiated, undisclosed?

Dja. [Aside.] Avow the truth? I cannot! In what words Avow that all she loved in me was false? --Which yet has served that flower-like love of hers To climb by, like the clinging gourd, and clasp With its divinest wealth of leaf and bloom. Could I take down the prop-work, in itself So vile, yet interlaced and overlaid With painted cups and fruitage--might these still Bask in the sun, unconscious their own strength Of matted stalk and tendril had replaced The old support thus silently withdrawn! But no; the beauteous fabric crushes too. 'T is not for my sake but for Anael's sake I leave her soul this Hakeem where it leans. Oh could I vanish from her, quit the Isle! And yet--a thought comes: here my work is done At every point; the Druses must return-- Have convoy to their birth-place back, whoe'er The leader be, myself or any Druse-- Venice is pledged to that: 't is for myself, For my own vengeance in the Prefect's death, I stay now, not for them: to slay or spare The Prefect, whom imports it save myself? He cannot bar their passage from the Isle; What would his death be but my own reward? Then, mine I will forego. It is foregone! Let him escape with all my House's blood! Ere he can reach land, Djabal disappears, And Hakeem, Anael loved, shall, fresh as first, Live in her memory, keeping her sublime Above the world. She cannot touch that world By ever knowing what I truly am, Since Loys,--of mankind the only one Able to link my present with my past, My life in Europe with my Island life, Thence, able to unmask me,--I 've disposed Safely at last at Rhodes, and ...

(Enter KHALIL.)

Kha. Loys greets thee!

Dja. Loys? To drag me back? It cannot be!

An. [Aside.] Loys! Ah, doubt may not be stifled so!

Kha. Can I have erred that thou so gazest? Yes, I told thee not in the glad press of tidings Of higher import, Loys is returned Before the Prefect, with, if possible, Twice the light-heartedness of old. As though On some inauguration he expects, To-day, the world's fate hung!

Dja. --And asks for me?

Kha. Thou knowest all things. Thee in chief he greets, But every Druse of us is to be happy At his arrival, he declares: were Loys Thou, Master, he could have no wider soul To take us in with. How I love that Loys!

Dja. [Aside.] Shame winds me with her tether round and round!

An. [Aside.] Loys? I take the trial! it is meet, The little I can do, be done; that faith, All I can offer, want no perfecting Which my own act may compass. Ay, this way All may go well, nor that ignoble doubt Be chased by other aid than mine. Advance Close to my fear, weigh Loys with my Lord, The mortal with the more than mortal gifts!

Dja. [Aside.] Before, there were so few deceived! and now There's doubtless not one least Druse in the Isle But, having learned my superhuman claims, And calling me his Khalif-God, will clash The whole truth out from Loys at first word! While Loys, for his part, will hold me up, With a Frank's unimaginable scorn Of such imposture, to my people's eyes! Could I but keep him longer yet awhile From them, amuse him here until I plan How he and I at once may leave the Isle! Khalil I cannot part with from my side-- My only help in this emergency: There's Anael!

An. Please you?

Dja. Anael--none but she!

[To ANAEL.] I pass some minutes in the chamber there, Ere I see Loys: you shall speak with him Until I join you. Khalil follows me.

An. [Aside.] As I divined: he bids me save myself, Offers me a probation--I accept! Let me see Loys!

Loys. [Without.] Djabal!

An. [Aside.] 'Tis his voice. The smooth Frank trifler with our people's wrongs, The self-complacent boy-inquirer, loud On this and that inflicted tyranny, --Aught serving to parade an ignorance Of how wrong feels, inflicted! Let me close With what I viewed at distance: let myself Probe this delusion to the core!

Dja. He comes. Khalil, along with me! while Anael waits Till I return once more--and but once more!

Act III

ANAEL and LOYS.

An. Here leave me! Here I wait another. 'T was For no mad protestation of a love Like this you say possesses you, I came.

Loys. Love? how protest a love I dare not feel? Mad words may doubtless have escaped me: you Are here--I only feel you here!

An. No more!

Loys. But once again, whom could you love? I dare, Alas, say nothing of myself, who am A Knight now, for when Knighthood we embrace, Love we abjure: so, speak on safely: speak, Lest I speak, and betray my faith! And yet To say your breathing passes through me, changes My blood to spirit, and my spirit to you, As Heaven the sacrificer's wine to it-- This is not to protest my love! You said You could love one ...

An. One only! We are bent To earth--who raises up my tribe, I love; The Prefect bows us--who removes him; we Have ancient rights--who gives them back to us, I love. Forbear me! Let my hand go!

Loys. Him You could love only? Where is Djabal? Stay! [Aside.] Yet wherefore stay? Who does this but myself? Had I apprised her that I come to do Just this, what more could she acknowledge? No, She sees into my heart's core! What is it Feeds either cheek with red, as June some rose? Why turns she from me? Ah fool, over-fond To dream I could call up ...

... What never dream Yet feigned! 'Tis love! Oh Anael, speak to me! Djabal--

An. Seek Djabal by the Prefect's chamber At noon! [She paces the room.

Loys. [Aside.] And am I not the Prefect now? Is it my fate to be the only one Able to win her love, the only one Unable to accept her love? The past Breaks up beneath my footing: came I here This morn as to a slave, to set her free And take her thanks, and then spend day by day Content beside her in the Isle? What works This knowledge in me now? Her eye has broken The faint disguise away: for Anael's sake I left the Isle, for her espoused the cause Of the Druses, all for her I thought, till now, To live without! --As I must live! To-day Ordains me Knight, forbids me ... never shall Forbid me to profess myself, heart, arm, Thy soldier!

An. Djabal you demanded, comes!

Loys. [Aside.] What wouldst thou, Loys? see him? Naught beside Is wanting: I have felt his voice a spell From first to last. He brought me here, made known The Druses to me, drove me hence to seek Redress for them; and shall I meet him now, When naught is wanting but a word of his, To--what?--induce me to spurn hope, faith, pride, Honor away,--to cast my lot among His tribe, become a proverb in men's mouths, Breaking my high pact of companionship With those who graciously bestowed on me The very opportunities I turn Against them! Let me not see Djabal now!

An. The Prefect also comes!

Loys. [Aside.] Him let me see, Not Djabal! Him, degraded at a word, To soothe me,--to attest belief in me-- And after, Djabal! Yes, ere I return To her, the Nuncio's vow shall have destroyed This heart's rebellion, and coerced this will Forever. Anael, not before the vows Irrevocably fix me ... Let me fly! The Prefect, or I lose myself forever! [Goes.

An. Yes, I am calm now; just one way remains-- One, to attest my faith in him: for, see, I were quite lost else: Loys, Djabal, stand On either side--two men! I balance looks And words, give Djabal a man's preference, No more. In Djabal, Hakeem is absorbed! And for a love like this, the God who saves My race, selects me for his bride? One way!--

(Enter DJABAL.)

Dja. [To himself.] No moment is to waste then; 'tis resolved. If Khalil may be trusted to lead back My Druses, and if Loys can be lured Out of the Isle--if I procure his silence, Or promise never to return at least,-- All's over. Even now my bark awaits: I reach the next wild islet and the next, And lose myself beneath the sun forever. And now, to Anael!

An. Djabal, I am thine!

Dja. Mine? Djabal's?--As if Hakeem had not been?

An. Not Djabal's? Say first, do you read my thought? Why need I speak, if you can read my thought?

Dja. I do not, I have said a thousand times.

An. (My secret's safe, I shall surprise him yet!) Djabal, I knew your secret from the first: Djabal, when first I saw you ... (by our porch You leant, and pressed the tinkling veil away, And one fringe fell behind your neck--I see!) ... I knew you were not human, for I said "This dim secluded house where the sea beats Is heaven to me--my people's huts are hell To them; this august form will follow me, Mix with the waves his voice will,--I have him; And they, the Prefect! Oh, my happiness Rounds to the full whether I choose or no! His eyes met mine, he was about to speak, His hand grew damp--surely he meant to say He let me love him: in that moment's bliss I shall forget my people pine for home-- They pass and they repass with pallid eyes!" I vowed at once a certain vow; this vow-- Not to embrace you till my tribe was saved. Embrace me!

Dja. [Apart.] And she loved me! Naught remained But that! Nay, Anael, is the Prefect dead?

An. Ah, you reproach me! True, his death crowns all, I know--or should know: and I would do much, Believe! but, death! Oh, you, who have known death, Would never doom the Prefect, were death fearful As we report! Death!--a fire curls within us From the foot's palm, and fills up to the brain, Up, out, then shatters the whole bubble-shell Of flesh, perchance! Death!--witness, I would die, Whate'er death be, would venture now to die For Khalil, for Maani--what for thee? Nay, but embrace me, Djabal, in assurance My vow will not be broken, for I must Do something to attest my faith in you, Be worthy you!

Dja. [Avoiding her.] I come for that--to say Such an occasion is at hand: 'tis like I leave you--that we part, my Anael,--part Forever!

An. We part? Just so! I have succumbed,-- I am, he thinks, unworthy--and naught less Will serve than such approval of my faith. Then, we part not! Remains there no way short Of that? Oh, not that! Death!--yet a hurt bird Died in my hands; its eyes filmed--"Nay, it sleeps," I said, "will wake to-morrow well:" 't was dead.

Dja. I stand here and time fleets. Anael--I come To bid a last farewell to you: perhaps We never meet again. But, ere the Prefect Arrive ...

(Enter KHALIL, breathlessly.)

Kha. He's here! The Prefect! Twenty guards, No more--no sign he dreams of danger. All Awaits thee only. Ayoob, Karshook, keep Their posts--wait but the deed's accomplishment To join us with thy Druses to a man. Still holds his course the Nuncio--near and near The fleet from Candia steering.

Dja. [Aside.] All is lost! --Or won?

Kha. And I have laid the sacred robe, The sword, the head-tiar, at the porch--the place Commanded. Thou wilt hear the Prefect's trumpet.

Dja. Then I keep Anael,--him then, past recall, I slay--'tis forced on me! As I began I must conclude--so be it!

Kha. For the rest, Save Loys, our foe's solitary sword, All is so safe that ... I will ne'er entreat Thy post again of thee: though danger none, There must be glory only meet for thee In slaying the Prefect!

An. [Aside.] And 'tis now that Djabal Would leave me!--in the glory meet for him!

Dja. As glory, I would yield the deed to you Or any Druse; what peril there may be, I keep. [Aside.] All things conspire to hound me on! Not now, my soul, draw back, at least! Not now! The course is plain, howe'er obscure all else. Once offer this tremendous sacrifice, Prevent what else will be irreparable, Secure these transcendental helps, regain The Cedars--then let all dark clear itself! I slay him!

Kha. Anael, and no part for us! [To DJA.] Hast thou possessed her with ...

Dja. [To AN.] Whom speak you to? What is it you behold there? Nay, this smile Turns stranger. Shudder you? The man must die, As thousands of our race have died through him. One blow, and I discharge his weary soul From the flesh that pollutes it! Let him fill Straight some new expiatory form, of earth Or sea, the reptile or some aëry thing: What is there in his death?

An. My brother said, Is there no part in it for us?

Dja. For Khalil,-- The trumpet will announce the Nuncio's entry; Here, I shall find the Prefect hastening In the Pavilion to receive him--here I slay the Prefect; meanwhile Ayoob leads The Nuncio with his guards within: once these Secured in the outer hall, bid Ayoob bar Entry or egress till I give the sign Which waits the landing of the argosies You will announce to me: this double sign That justice is performed and help arrived, When Ayoob shall receive, but not before, Let him throw ope the palace doors, admit The Druses to behold their tyrant, ere We leave forever this detested spot. Go, Khalil, hurry all! No pause, no pause! Whirl on the dream, secure to wake anon!

Kha. What sign? and who the bearer?

Dja. Who shall show My ring, admit to Ayoob. How she stands! Have I not ... I must have some task for her. Anael, not that way! 'T is the Prefect's chamber! Anael, keep you the ring--give you the sign! (It holds her safe amid the stir.) You will Be faithful?

An. [Taking the ring.] I would fain be worthy. Hark! [Trumpet without.

Kha. He comes!

Dja. And I too come.

An. One word, but one! Say, shall you be exalted at the deed? Then? On the instant?

Dja. I exalted? What? He, there--we, thus--our wrongs revenged, our tribe Set free? Oh, then shall I, assure yourself, Shall you, shall each of us, be in his death Exalted!

Kha. He is here!

Dja. Away--away! [They go.

(Enter the PREFECT with GUARDS, and LOYS.)

The Prefect. [To Guards.] Back, I say, to the galley every guard! That's my sole care now; see each bench retains Its complement of rowers; I embark O' the instant, since this Knight will have it so. Alas me! Could you have the heart, my Loys! [To a Guard who whispers.] Oh, bring the holy Nuncio here forthwith! [The Guards go. Loys, a rueful sight, confess, to see The gray discarded Prefect leave his post, With tears i' the eye! So, you are Prefect now? You depose me--you succeed me? Ha, ha!

Loys. And dare you laugh, whom laughter less becomes Than yesterday's forced meekness we beheld ...

Pref.--When you so eloquently pleaded, Loys, For my dismissal from the post? Ah, meek With cause enough, consult the Nuncio else! And wish him the like meekness: for so stanch A servant of the church can scarce have bought His share in the Isle, and paid for it, hard pieces! You 've my successor to condole with, Nuncio! I shall be safe by then i' the galley, Loys!

Loys. You make as you would tell me you rejoice To leave your scene of ...

Pref. Trade in the dear Druses? Blood and sweat traffic? Spare what yesterday We heard enough of! Drove I in the Isle A profitable game? Learn wit, my son, Which you'll need shortly! Did it never breed Suspicion in you, all was not pure profit, When I, the insatiate ... and so forth--was bent On having a partaker in my rule? Why did I yield this Nuncio half the gain, If not that I might also shift--what on him? Half of the peril, Loys!

Loys. Peril?

Pref. Hark you! I'd love you if you'd let me--this for reason, You save my life at price of ... well, say risk At least, of yours. I came a long time since To the Isle; our Hospitallers bade me tame These savage wizards, and reward myself--

Loys. The Knights who so repudiate your crime?

Pref. Loys, the Knights! we doubtless understood Each other; as for trusting to reward From any friend beside myself ... no, no! I clutched mine on the spot, when it was sweet, And I had taste for it. I felt these wizards Alive--was sure they were not on me, only When I was on them: but with age comes caution: And stinging pleasures please less and sting more. Year by year, fear by fear! The girls were brighter Than ever ('faith, there's yet one Anael left, I set my heart upon--Oh, prithee, let That brave new sword lie still!)--These joys looked brighter, But silenter the town, too, as I passed. With this alcove's delicious memories Began to mingle visions of gaunt fathers, Quick-eyed sons, fugitives from the mine, the oar, Stealing to catch me. Brief, when I began To quake with fear--(I think I hear the Chapter Solicited to let me leave, now all Worth staying for was gained and gone!)--I say. Just when, for the remainder of my life, All methods of escape seemed lost--that then Up should a young hot-headed Loys spring, Talk very long and loud,--in fine, compel The Knights to break their whole arrangement, have me Home for pure shame--from this safehold of mine Where but ten thousand Druses seek my life, To my wild place of banishment, San Gines By Murcia, where my three fat manors lying, Purchased by gains here and the Nuncio's gold, Are all I have to guard me,--that such fortune Should fall to me, I hardly could expect. Therefore I say, I 'd love you.

Loys. Can it be? I play into your hands then? Oh no, no! The Venerable Chapter, the Great Order Sunk o' the sudden into fiends of the pit? But I will back--will yet unveil you!

Pref. Me? To whom?--perhaps Sir Galeas, who in Chapter Shook his white head thrice--and some dozen times My hand next morning shook, for value paid! To that Italian saint, Sir Cosimo?-- Indignant at my wringing year by year A thousand bezants from the coral divers, As you recounted; felt the saint aggrieved Well might he--I allowed for his half-share Merely one hundred! To Sir ...

Loys. See! you dare Inculpate the whole Order; yet should I, A youth, a sole voice, have the power to change Their evil way, had they been firm in it? Answer me!

Pref. Oh, the son of Bretagne's Duke, And that son's wealth, the father's influence, too, And the young arm, we'll even say, my Loys, --The fear of losing or diverting these Into another channel, by gainsaying A novice too abruptly, could not influence The Order! You might join, for aught they cared, Their red-cross rivals of the Temple! Well, I thank you for my part, at all events. Stay here till they withdraw you! You'll inhabit My palace--sleep, perchance, in the alcove Whither I go to meet our holy friend. Good! and now disbelieve me if you can,-- This is the first time for long years I enter Thus [lifts the arras] without feeling just as if I lifted The lid up of my tomb.

Loys. They share his crime! God's punishment will overtake you yet.

Pref. Thank you it does not! Pardon this last flash: I bear a sober visage presently With the disinterested Nuncio here-- His purchase-money safe at Murcia, too! Let me repeat--for the first time, no draught Coming as from a sepulchre salutes me. When we next meet, this folly may have passed, We'll hope. Ha, ha! [Goes through the arras.

Loys. Assure me but ... he's gone! He could not lie. Then what have I escaped, I, who had so nigh given up happiness Forever, to be linked with him and them! Oh, opportunest of discoveries! I Their Knight? I utterly renounce them all! Hark! What, he meets by this the Nuncio? Yes, The same hyæna groan-like laughter! Quick-- To Djabal! I am one of them at last, These simple-hearted Druses--Anael's tribe! Djabal! She's mine at last. Djabal, I say! [Goes.

Act IV

Enter DJABAL.

Dja. Let me but slay the Prefect. The end now! To-morrow will be time enough to pry Into the means I took: suffice, they served, Ignoble as they were, to hurl revenge True to its object. [Seeing the robe, etc. disposed. Mine should never so Have hurried to accomplishment! Thee, Djabal, Far other mood befitted! Calm the Robe Should clothe this doom's awarder! [Taking the robe.] Shall I dare Assume my nation's Robe? I am at least A Druse again, chill Europe's policy Drops from me: I dare take the Robe. Why not The Tiar? I rule the Druses, and what more Betokens it than rule?--yet--yet-- [Lays down the tiar. [Footsteps in the alcove.] He comes! [Taking the sword. If the Sword serve, let the Tiar lie! So, feet Clogged with the blood of twenty years can fall Thus lightly! Round me, all ye ghosts! He'll lift ... Which arm to push the arras wide?--or both? Stab from the neck down to the heart--there stay! Near he comes--nearer--the next footstep! Now! [As he dashes aside the arras, ANAEL is discovered. Ha! Anael! Nay, my Anael, can it be? Heard you the trumpet? I must slay him here, And here you ruin all. Why speak you not? Anael, the Prefect comes! [ANAEL screams.] So slow to feel 'T is not a sight for you to look upon? A moment's work--but such work! Till you go, I must be idle--idle, I risk all! [Pointing to her hair. Those locks are well, and you are beauteous thus, But with the dagger 't is, I have to do!

An. With mine!

Dja. Blood--Anael?

An. Djabal, 't is thy deed! It must be! I had hoped to claim it mine-- Be worthy thee--but I must needs confess 'T was not I, but thyself ... not I have ... Djabal! Speak to me!

Dja. Oh my punishment!

An. Speak to me While I can speak! touch me, despite the blood! When the command passed from thy soul to mine, I went, fire leading me, muttering of thee, And the approaching exaltation,--"make One sacrifice!" I said,--and he sat there, Bade me approach; and, as I did approach, Thy fire with music burst into my brain. 'T was but a moment's work, thou saidst--perchance It may have been so! Well, it is thy deed!

Dja. It is my deed!

An. His blood all this!--this! and ... And more! Sustain me, Djabal! Wait not--now Let flash thy glory! Change thyself and me! It must be! Ere the Druses flock to us! At least confirm me! Djabal, blood gushed forth-- He was our tyrant--but I looked he'd fall Prone as asleep--why else is death called sleep? Sleep? He bent o'er his breast! 'T is sin, I know,-- Punish me, Djabal, but wilt thou let him? Be it thou that punishest, not he--who creeps On his red breast--is here! 'T is the small groan Of a child--no worse! Bestow the new life, then! Too swift it cannot be, too strange, surpassing! [Following him up as he retreats. Now! Change us both! Change me and change thou!

Dja. [Sinks on his knees.] Thus! Behold my change! You have done nobly. I!--

An. Can Hakeem kneel?

Dja. No Hakeem, and scarce Djabal! I have dealt falsely, and this woe is come. No--hear me ere scorn blast me! Once and ever, The deed is mine! Oh think upon the past!

An. [To herself.] Did I strike once, or twice, or many times?

Dja. I came to lead my tribe where, bathed in glooms, Doth Bahumid the Renovator sleep: Anael, I saw my tribe: I said, "Without A miracle this cannot be"--I said "Be there a miracle!"--for I saw you!

An. His head lies south the portal!

Dja. --Weighed with this The general good, how could I choose my own? What matter was my purity of soul? Little by little I engaged myself-- Heaven would accept me for its instrument, I hoped: I said Heaven had accepted me!

An. Is it this blood breeds dreams in me?--Who said You were not Hakeem? And your miracles-- The fire that plays innocuous round your form? [Again changing her whole manner. Ah, thou wouldst try me--thou art Hakeem still!

Dja. Woe--woe! As if the Druses of the Mount (Scarce Arabs, even there, but here, in the Isle, Beneath their former selves) should comprehend The subtle lore of Europe! A few secrets That would not easily affect the meanest Of the crowd there, could wholly subjugate The best of our poor tribe. Again that eye?

An. [After a pause springs to his neck.] Djabal, in this there can be no deceit! Why, Djabal, were you human only,--think, Maani is but human, Khalil human, Loys is human even--did their words Haunt me, their looks pursue me? Shame on you So to have tried me! Rather, shame on me So to need trying! Could I, with the Prefect And the blood, there--could I see only you? --Hang by your neck over this gulf of blood? Speak, I am saved! Speak, Djabal! Am I saved? [As DJABAL _slowly unclasps her arms, and puts her silently from him_. Hakeem would save me! Thou art Djabal! Crouch! Bow to the dust, thou basest of our kind! The pile of thee, I reared up to the cloud-- Full, midway, of our fathers' trophied tombs, Based on the living rock, devoured not by The unstable desert's jaws of sand,--falls prone! Fire, music, quenched: and now thou liest there A ruin, obscene creatures will moan through! --Let us come, Djabal!

Dja. Whither come?

An. At once-- Lest so it grow intolerable. Come! Will I not share it with thee? Best at once! So, feel less pain! Let them deride,--thy tribe Now trusting in thee,--Loys shall deride! Come to them, hand in hand, with me!

Dja. Where come?

An. Where?--to the Druses thou hast wronged! Confess, Now that the end is gained--(I love thee now--) That thou hast so deceived them--(perchance love thee Better than ever!) Come, receive their doom Of infamy! Oh, best of all I love thee! Shame with the man, no triumph with the God, Be mine! Come!

Dja. Never! More shame yet? and why? Why? You have called this deed mine--it is mine! And with it I accept its circumstance. How can I longer strive with fate? The past Is past: my false life shall henceforth show true. Hear me! The argosies touch land by this; They bear us to fresh scenes and happier skies: What if we reign together?--if we keep Our secret for the Druses' good?--by means Of even their superstition, plant in them New life? I learn from Europe: all who seek Man's good must awe man, by such means as these. We two will be divine to them--we are! All great works in this world spring from the ruins Of greater projects--ever, on our earth, Babels men block out, Babylons they build. I wrest the weapon from your hand! I claim The deed! Retire! You have my ring--you bar All access to the Nuncio till the forces From Venice land!

An. Thou wilt feign Hakeem then?

Dja. [_Putting the Tiara of Hakeem, on his head_.] And from this moment that I dare ope wide Eyes that till now refused to see, begins My true dominion: for I know myself, And what am I to personate. No word? [ANAEL goes. 'T is come on me at last! His blood on her-- What memories will follow that! Her eye, Her fierce distorted lip and ploughed black brow! Ah, fool! Has Europe then so poorly tamed The Syrian blood from out thee? Thou, presume To work in this foul earth by means not foul? Scheme, as for heaven,--but, on the earth, be glad If a least ray like heaven's be left thee! Thus I shall be calm--in readiness--no way Surprised. [A noise without. This should be Khalil and my Druses. Venice is come then! Thus I grasp thee, sword! Druses, 't is Hakeem saves you! In! Behold Your Prefect!

(Enter LOYS. DJABAL hides the khandjar in his robe.)

Loys. Oh, well found, Djabal!--but no time for words. You know who waits there? [Pointing to the alcove. Well!--and that 't is there He meets the Nuncio? Well? Now, a surprise-- He there--

Dja. I know--

Loys. --is now no mortal's lord, Is absolutely powerless--call him, dead-- He is no longer Prefect--you are Prefect! Oh, shrink not! I do nothing in the dark, Nothing unworthy Breton blood, believe! I understood at once your urgency That I should leave this isle for Rhodes; I felt What you were loath to speak--your need of help. I have fulfilled the task, that earnestness Imposed on me: have, face to face, confronted The Prefect in full Chapter, charged on him The enormities of his long rule; he stood Mute, offered no defence, no crime denied. On which, I spoke of you, and of your tribe, Your faith so like our own, and all you urged Of old to me--I spoke, too, of your goodness, Your patience--brief, I hold henceforth the Isle In charge, am nominally lord,--but you, You are associated in my rule-- Are the true Prefect! Ay, such faith had they In my assurance of your loyalty (For who insults an imbecile old man?) That we assume the Prefecture this hour! You gaze at me? Hear greater wonders yet-- I cast down all the fabric I have built! These Knights, I was prepared to worship ... but Of that another time; what's now to say, Is--I shall never be a Knight! Oh, Djabal, Here first I throw all prejudice aside, And call you brother! I am Druse like you: My wealth, my friends, my power, are wholly yours, Your people's, which is now my people: for There is a maiden of your tribe, I love-- She loves me--Khalil's sister--

Dja. Anael?

Loys. Start you? Seems what I say, unknightly? Thus it chanced: When first I came, a novice, to the isle ...

(Enter one of the NUNCIO'S Guards from the alcove.)

Guard. Oh horrible! Sir Loys! Here is Loys! And here-- [Others enter from the alcove. [Pointing to DJABAL.] Secure him, bind him--this is he! [They surround DJABAL.

Loys. Madmen--what is 't you do? Stand from my friend, And tell me!

Guard. Thou canst have no part in this-- Surely no part! But slay him not! The Nuncio Commanded, slay him not!

Loys. Speak, or ...

Guard. The Prefect Lies murdered there by him thou dost embrace.

Loys. By Djabal? Miserable fools! How Djabal?

[A Guard lifts DJABAL'S robe; DJABAL flings down the khandjar.

Loys. [After a pause.] Thou hast received some insult worse than all, Some outrage not to be endured-- [To the Guards.] Stand back! He is my friend--more than my friend! Thou hast Slain him upon that provocation!

Guard. No! No provocation! 'T is a long devised Conspiracy: the whole tribe is involved. He is their Khalif--'t is on that pretence-- Their mighty Khalif who died long ago, And now comes back to life and light again! All is just now revealed, I know not how, By one of his confederates--who, struck With horror at this murder, first apprised The Nuncio. As 't was said, we find this Djabal Here where we take him.

Dja. [Aside.] Who broke faith with me?

Loys. [To DJABAL.] Hear'st thou? Speak! Till thou speak I keep off these, Or die with thee. Deny this story! Thou A Khalif, an impostor? Thou, my friend, Whose tale was of an inoffensive tribe, With ... but thou know'st--on that tale's truth I pledged My faith before the Chapter: what art thou?

Dja. Loys, I am as thou hast heard. All 's true! No more concealment! As these tell thee, all Was long since planned. Our Druses are enough To crush this handful: the Venetians land Even now in our behalf. Loys, we part! Thou, serving much, wouldst fain have served me more; It might not be. I thank thee. As thou hearest, We are a separated tribe: farewell!

Loys. Oh, where will truth be found now? Canst thou so Belie the Druses? Do they share thy crime? Those thou professest of our Breton stock, Are partners with thee? Why, I saw but now Khalil, my friend--he spoke with me--no word Of this! and Anael--whom I love, and who Loves me--she spoke no word of this!

Dja. Poor boy! Anael, who loves thee? Khalil, fast thy friend? We, offsets from a wandering Count of Dreux? No: older than the oldest, princelier Than Europe's princeliest race, our tribe: enough For thine, that on our simple faith we found A monarchy to shame your monarchies At their own trick and secret of success. The child of this our tribe shall laugh upon The palace-step of him whose life ere night Is forfeit, as that child shall know, and yet Shall laugh there! What, we Druses wait forsooth The kind interposition of a boy --Can only save ourselves if thou concede? --Khalil admire thee? He is my right hand, My delegate!--Anael accept thy love? She is my bride!

Loys. Thy bride? She one of them?

Dja. My bride!

Loys. And she retains her glorious eyes! She, with those eyes, has shared this miscreant's guilt! Ah--who but she directed me to find Djabal within the Prefect's chamber? Khalil Bade me seek Djabal there, too! All is truth! What spoke the Prefect worse of them than this? Did the Church ill to institute long since Perpetual warfare with such serpentry? And I--have I desired to shift my part, Evade my share in her design? 'T is well!

Dja. Loys, I wronged thee--but unwittingly: I never thought there was in thee a virtue That could attach itself to what thou deemest A race below thine own. I wronged thee, Loys, But that is over: all is over now, Save the protection I ensure against My people's anger. By their Khalif's side, Thou art secure and may'st depart: so, come!

Loys. Thy side? I take protection at thy hand?

(Enter other Guards.)

Guards. Fly with him! Fly, Sir Loys! 'T is too true! And only by his side thou may'st escape! The whole tribe is in full revolt: they flock About the palace--will be here--on thee-- And there are twenty of us, we the Guards O' the Nuncio, to withstand them! Even we Had stayed to meet our death in ignorance, But that one Druse, a single faithful Druse, Made known the horror to the Nuncio. Fly! The Nuncio stands aghast. At least let us Escape thy wrath, O Hakeem! We are naught In thy tribe's persecution! [To LOYS.] Keep by him! They hail him Hakeem, their dead Prince returned: He is their God, they shout, and at his beck Are life and death!

[LOYS, springing at the khandjar DJABAL _had thrown down, seizes him by the throat_. Thus by his side am I! Thus I resume my knighthood and its warfare, Thus end thee, miscreant, in thy pride of place! Thus art thou caught. Without, thy dupes may cluster. Friends aid thee, foes avoid thee,--thou art Hakeem, How say they?--God art thou! but also here Is the least, youngest, meanest the Church calls Her servant, and his single arm avails To aid her as she lists. I rise, and thou Art crushed! Hordes of thy Druses flock without: Here thou hast me, who represent the Cross, Honor and Faith, 'gainst Hell, Mahound and thee. Die! [DJABAL remains calm.] Implore my mercy, Hakeem, that my scorn May help me! Nay, I cannot ply thy trade; I am no Druse, no stabber: and thine eye, Thy form, are too much as they were--my friend Had such! Speak! Beg for mercy at my foot! [[DJABAL still silent. Heaven could not ask so much of me--not, sure, So much! I cannot kill him so! [After a pause.] Thou art Strong in thy cause, then--dost outbrave us, then. Heardst thou that one of thine accomplices, Thy very people, has accused thee? Meet His charge! Thou hast not even slain the Prefect As thy own vile creed warrants. Meet that Druse! Come with me and disprove him--be thou tried By him, nor seek appeal! Promise me this, Or I will do God's office! What, shalt thou Boast of assassins at thy beck, yet truth Want even an executioner? Consent, Or I will strike--look in my face--I will!

Dja. Give me again my khandjar, if thou darest! [LOYS gives it. Let but one Druse accuse me, and I plunge This home. A Druse betray me? Let us go! [Aside.] Who has betrayed me? [Shouts without. Hearest thou? I hear No plainer than long years ago I heard That shout--but in no dream now! They return! Wilt thou be leader with me, Loys? Well!

Act V

The uninitiated Druses, filling the hall tumultuously, and speaking together.

Here flock we, obeying the summons. Lo, Hakeem hath appeared, and the Prefect is dead, and we return to Lebanon! My manufacture of goats' fleece must, I doubt, soon fall away there. Come, old Nasif--link thine arm in mine--we fight, if needs be. Come, what is a great fight-word?--"Lebanon?" (My daughter--my daughter!)--But is Khalil to have the office of Hamza?--Nay, rather, if he be wise, the monopoly of henna and cloves. Where is Hakeem?--The only prophet I ever saw, prophesied at Cairo once, in my youth: a little black Copht, dressed all in black too, with a great stripe of yellow cloth flapping down behind him like the back-fin of a water-serpent. Is this he? Biamrallah! Biamreh! HAKEEM!

(Enter the NUNCIO, with Guards.)

Nuncio. [To his Attendants.] Hold both, the sorcerer and this accomplice Ye talk of, that accuseth him! And tell Sir Loys he is mine, the Church's hope: Bid him approve himself our Knight indeed! Lo, this black disemboguing of the Isle! [To the Druses.] Ah, children, what a sight for these old eyes That kept themselves alive this voyage through To smile their very last on you! I came To gather one and all you wandering sheep Into my fold, as though a father came ... As though, in coming, a father should ... [To his Guards.] (Ten, twelve --Twelve guards of you, and not an outlet? None? The wizards stop each avenue? Keep close!) [To the Druses.] As if one came to a son's house, I say, So did I come--no guard with me--to find ... Alas--alas!

A Druse. Who is the old man?

Another. Oh, ye are to shout! Children, he styles you.

Druses. Ay, the Prefect's slain! Glory to the Khalif, our Father!

Nuncio. Even so! I find (ye prompt aright) your father slain! While most he plotted for your good, that father (Alas, how kind, ye never knew)--lies slain! [Aside.] (And hell's worm gnaw the glozing knave--with me, For being duped by his cajoleries! Are these the Christians? These the docile crew My bezants went to make me Bishop o'er?) [To his Attendants, who whisper.] What say ye does this wizard style himself? Hakeem? Biamrallah? The third Fatemite? What is this jargon? He--the insane Khalif, Dead near three hundred years ago, come back In flesh and blood again?

Druses. He mutters! Hear ye? He is blaspheming Hakeem. The old man Is our dead Prefect's friend. Tear him!

Nuncio. Ye dare not! I stand here with my five-and-seventy years, The Patriarch's power behind me, God's above! Those years have witnessed sin enough; ere now Misguided men arose against their lords, And found excuse; but ye, to be enslaved By sorceries, cheats--alas! the same tricks, tried On my poor children in this nook o' the earth, Could triumph, that have been successively Exploded, laughed to scorn, all nations through: "Romaioi, Ioudaioite kai proselutoi, Cretes and Arabians,"--you are duped the last. Said I, refrain from tearing me? I pray ye Tear me! Shall I return to tell the Patriarch That so much love was wasted--every gift Rejected, from his benison I brought, Down to the galley-full of bezants, sunk An hour since at the harbor's mouth, by that ... That ... never will I speak his hated name! [To his Servants.] What was the name his fellow slip-fetter Called their arch-wizard by? [They whisper.] Oh, Djabal was't?

Druses. But how a sorcerer? false wherein?

Nuncio. (Ay, Djabal!) How false? Ye know not, Djabal has confessed ... Nay, that by tokens found on him we learn ... What I sailed hither solely to divulge-- How by his spells the demons were allured To seize you: not that these be aught save lies And mere illusions. Is this clear? I say, By measures such as these, he would have led you Into a monstrous ruin: follow ye? Say, shall ye perish for his sake, my sons?

Druses. Hark ye!

Nuncio. --Be of one privilege amerced? No! Infinite the Patriarch's mercies are! No! With the Patriarch's license, still I bid Tear him to pieces who misled you! Haste!

Druses. The old man's beard shakes, and his eyes are white fire! After all, I know nothing of Djabal beyond what Karshook says; he knows but what Khalil says, who knows just what Djabal says himself. Now, the little Copht Prophet, I saw at Cairo in my youth, began by promising each bystander three full measures of wheat ...

(Enter KHALIL and the initiated Druses.)

Kha. Venice and her deliverance are at hand: Their fleet stands through the harbor! Hath he slain The Prefect yet? Is Djabal's change come yet?

Nuncio. [To Attendants.] What's this of Venice? Who's this boy? [Attendants whisper.] One Khalil? Djabal's accomplice, Loys called, but now, The only Druse, save Djabal's self, to fear? [To the Druses.] I cannot hear ye with these aged ears; Is it so? Ye would have my troops assist? Doth he abet him in his sorceries? Down with the cheat, guards, as my children bid! [They spring at KHALIL; as he beats them back. Stay! No more bloodshed! Spare deluded youth! Whom seek'st thou? (I will teach him)--whom, my child? Thou know'st not what these know, what these declare. I am an old man, as thou seest--have done With life; and what should move me but the truth? Art thou the only fond one of thy tribe? 'T is I interpret for thy tribe!

Kha. Oh, this Is the expected Nuncio! Druses, hear-- Endure ye this? Unworthy to partake The glory Hakeem gains you! While I speak, The ships touch land: who makes for Lebanon? They plant the wingèd lion in these halls!

Nuncio. [Aside.] If it be true! Venice? Oh, never true! Yet Venice would so gladly thwart our Knights, So fain get footing here, stand close by Rhodes! Oh, to be duped this way!

Kha. Ere he appear And lead you gloriously, repent, I say!

Nuncio. [Aside.] Nor any way to stretch the arch-wizard stark Ere the Venetians come? Cut off the head, The trunk were easily stilled. [To the Druses.] He? Bring him forth! Since so you needs will have it, I assent! You 'd judge him, say you, on the spot?--confound The sorcerer in his very circle? Where 's Our short black-bearded sallow friend who swore He 'd earn the Patriarch's guerdon by one stab? Bring Djabal forth at once!

Druses. Ay, bring him forth! The Patriarch drives a trade in oil and silk, And we 're the Patriarch's children--true men, we! Where is the glory? Show us all the glory!

Kha. You dare not so insult him! What, not see ... (I tell thee, Nuncio, these are uninstructed, Untrusted--they know nothing of our Khalif!) --Not see that if he lets a doubt arise 'T is but to give yourselves the chance of seeming To have some influence in your own return! That all may say ye would have trusted him Without the all-convincing glory--ay, And did! Embrace the occasion, friends! For, think-- What wonder when his change takes place? But now For your sakes, he should not reveal himself. No--could I ask and have, I would not ask The change yet! (Enter DJABAL and LOYS.) Spite of all, reveal thyself! I had said, pardon them for me--for Anael-- For our sakes pardon these besotted men-- Ay, for thine own--they hurt not thee! Yet now One thought swells in me and keeps down all else. This Nuncio couples shame with thee, has called Imposture thy whole course, all bitter things Has said: he is but an old fretful man! Hakeem--nay, I must call thee Hakeem now-- Reveal thyself! See! Where is Anael? See!

Loys. [To DJA.] Here are thy people! Keep thy word to me!

Dja. Who of my people hath accused me?

Nuncio. So! So this is Djabal, Hakeem, and what not? A fit deed, Loys, for thy first Knight's day! May it be augury of thy after-life! Ever prove truncheon of the Church as now That, Nuncio of the Patriarch, having charge Of the Isle here, I claim thee [turning to DJA.] as these bid me, Forfeit for murder done thy lawful prince, Thou conjurer that peep'st and mutterest! Why should I hold thee from their hands? (Spells, children? But hear how I dispose of all his spells!) Thou art a prophet?--wouldst entice thy tribe From me?--thou workest miracles? (Attend! Let him but move me with his spells!) I, Nuncio ...

Dja. ... Which how thou camest to be, I say not now, Though I have also been at Stamboul, Luke! Ply thee with spells, forsooth! What need of spells? If Venice, in her Admiral's person, stoop To ratify thy compact with her foe, The Hospitallers, for this Isle--withdraw Her warrant of the deed which reinstates My people in their freedom, tricked away By him I slew,--refuse to convoy us To Lebanon and keep the Isle we leave-- Then will be time to try what spells can do! Dost thou dispute the Republic's power?

Nuncio. Lo ye! He tempts me too, the wily exorcist! No! The renowned Republic was and is The Patriarch's friend: 't is not for courting Venice That I--that these implore thy blood of me! Lo ye, the subtle miscreant! Ha, so subtle? Ye Druses, hear him! Will ye be deceived? How he evades me! Where 's the miracle He works? I bid him to the proof--fish up Your galley full of bezants that he sank! That were a miracle! One miracle! Enough of trifling, for it chafes my years. I am the Nuncio, Druses! I stand forth To save you from the good Republic's rage When she shall find her fleet was summoned here To aid the mummeries of a knave like this! [As the Druses hesitate, his Attendants whisper. Ah, well suggested! Why, we hold the while One who, his close confederate till now, Confesses Diabal at the last a cheat, And every miracle a cheat! Who throws me His head? I make three offers, once I offer,-- And twice ...

Dja. Let who moves perish at my foot!

Kha. Thanks, Hakeem, thanks! Oh, Anael, Maani, Why tarry they?

Druses. [To each other.] He can! He can! Live fire-- [To the NUNCIO.] I say he can, old man! Thou know'st him not. Live fire like that thou seest now in his eyes, Plays fawning round him. See! The change begins! All the brow lightens as he lifts his arm! Look not at me! It was not I!

Dja. What Druse Accused me, as he saith? I bid each bone Crumble within that Druse! None, Loys, none Of my own people, as thou said'st, have raised A voice against me.

Nuncio. [Aside.] Venice to come! Death!

Dja. [Continuing.] Confess and go unscathed, however false! Seest thou my Druses, Luke? I would submit To thy pure malice did one Druse confess! How said I, Loys?

Nuncio. [To his Attendants who whisper.] Ah, ye counsel so? [Aloud.] Bring in the witness, then, who, first of all, Disclosed the treason! Now I have thee, wizard! Ye hear that? If one speaks, he bids you tear him Joint after joint: well then, one does speak! One, Befooled by Djabal, even as yourselves, But who hath voluntarily proposed To expiate, by confessing thus, the fault Of having trusted him. [They bring in a veiled Druse.

Loys. Now, Djabal, now!

Nuncio. Friend, Djabal fronts thee! Make a ring, sons. Speak! Expose this Djabal--what he was, and how; The wiles he used, the aims he cherished; all, Explicitly as late 't was spoken to these My servants: I absolve and pardon thee.

Loys. Thou hast the dagger ready, Djabal?

Dja. Speak, Recreant!

Druses. Stand back, fool! farther! Suddenly You shall see some huge serpent glide from under The empty vest, or down will thunder crash! Back, Khalil!

Kha. I go back? Thus go I back! [To AN.] Unveil! Nay, thou shalt face the Khalif! Thus!

[He tears away ANAEL'S veil; DJABAL _folds his arms and bows his head; the_ Druses fall back; LOYS springs from the side of DJABAL and the NUNCIO.

Loys. Then she was true--she only of them all! True to her eyes--may keep those glorious eyes, And now be mine, once again mine! Oh, Anael! Dared I think thee a partner in his crime-- That blood could soil that hand? nay, 't is mine--Anael, --Not mine?--Who offer thee before all these My heart, my sword, my name--so thou wilt say That Djabal, who affirms thou art his bride, Lies--say but that he lies!

Dja. Thou, Anael?

Loys. Nay, Djabal, nay, one chance for me--the last! Thou hast had every other; thou hast spoken Days, nights, what falsehood listed thee--let me Speak first now; I will speak now!

Nuncio. Loys, pause! Thou art the Duke's son, Bretagne's choicest stock, Loys of Dreux, God's sepulchre's first sword: This wilt thou spit on, this degrade, this trample To earth?

Loys. [To AN.] Who had foreseen that one day, Loys Would stake these gifts against some other good In the whole world? I give them thee! I would My strong will might bestow real shape on them, That I might see, with my own eyes, thy foot Tread on their very neck! 'T is not by gifts I put aside this Djabal: we will stand-- We do stand, see, two men! Djabal, stand forth! Who's worth her, I or thou? I--who for Anael Uprightly, purely kept my way, the long True way--left thee each by-path, boldly lived Without the lies and blood,--or thou, or thou? Me! love me, Anael! Leave the blood and him! [To DJA.] Now speak--now, quick on this that I have said,-- Thou with the blood, speak if thou art a man!

Dja. [To AN.] And was it thou betrayedst me? 'T is well! I have deserved this of thee, and submit. Nor 't is much evil thou inflictest: life Ends here. The cedars shall not wave for us: For there was crime, and must be punishment. See fate! By thee I was seduced, by thee I perish: yet do I--can I repent? I with my Arab instinct, thwarted ever By my Frank policy,--and with, in turn, My Frank brain, thwarted by my Arab heart-- While these remained in equipoise, I lived --Nothing; had either been predominant, As a Frank schemer or an Arab mystic, I had been something;--now, each has destroyed The other--and behold, from out their crash, A third and better nature rises up-- My mere man's-nature! And I yield to it: I love thee, I who did not love before!

An. Djabal!

Dja. It seemed love, but it was not love: How could I love while thou adoredst me? Now thou despisest, art above me so Immeasurably! Thou, no other, doomest My death now; this my steel shall execute Thy judgment; I shall feel thy hand in it! Oh, luxury to worship, to submit, Transcended, doomed to death by thee!

An. My Djabal!

Dja. Dost hesitate? I force thee then! Approach, Druses! for I am out of reach of fate; No further evil waits me. Speak the doom! Hear, Druses, and hear, Nuncio, and hear, Loys!

An. HAKEEM! [She falls dead.

[The DRUSES scream, grovelling before him.

Druses. Ah, Hakeem!--not on me thy wrath! Biamrallah, pardon! never doubted I! Ha, dog, how sayest thou?

[They surround and seize the NUNCIO and his Guards. LOYS flings himself upon the body of ANAEL, on which DJABAL continues to gaze as stupefied.

Nuncio. Caitiffs! Have ye eyes? Whips, racks should teach you! What, his fools? his dupes? Leave me! unhand me!

Kha. [Approaching DJABAL timidly.] Save her for my sake! She was already thine; she would have shared To-day thine exaltation: think, this day Her hair was plaited thus because of thee! Yes, feel the soft bright hair--feel!

Nuncio. [Struggling with those who have seized him.] What, because His leman dies for him? You think it hard To die? Oh, would you were at Rhodes, and choice Of deaths should suit you!

Kha. [Bending over ANAEL'S body.] Just restore her life! So little does it! there--the eyelids tremble! 'T was not my breath that made them: and the lips Move of themselves. I could restore her life! Hakeem, we have forgotten--have presumed On our free converse: we are better taught. See, I kiss--how I kiss thy garment's hem For her! She kisses it--Oh, take her deed In mine! Thou dost believe now, Anael?--See, She smiles! Were her lips open o'er the teeth Thus, when I spoke first? She believes in thee! Go not without her to the cedars, lord! Or leave us both--I cannot go alone! I have obeyed thee, if I dare so speak: Hath Hakeem thus forgot all Djabal knew? Thou feelest then my tears fall hot and fast Upon thy hand, and yet thou speakest not? Ere the Venetian trumpet sound--ere thou Exalt thyself, O Hakeem! save thou her!

Nuncio. And the accursed Republic will arrive And find me in their toils--dead, very like, Under their feet! What way--not one way yet To foil them? None? [Observing DJABAL'S face.] What ails the Khalif? Ah, That ghastly face! A way to foil them yet! [To the Druses.] Look to your Khalif, Druses! Is that face God Hakeem's? Where is triumph,--where is ... what Said he of exaltation--hath he promised So much to-day? Why then, exalt thyself! Cast off that husk, thy form, set free thy soul In splendor! Now, bear witness! here I stand-- I challenge him exalt himself, and I Become, for that, a Druse like all of you!

The Druses. Exalt thyself! Exalt thyself, O Hakeem!

Dja. [Advances.] I can confess now all from first to last. There is no longer shame for me. I am ...

[Here the Venetian trumpet sounds: the Druses shout, DJABAL'S _eye catches the expression of those about him, and, as the old dream comes back, he is again confident and inspired_.

--Am I not Hakeem? And ye would have crawled But yesterday within these impure courts Where now ye stand erect! Not grand enough? --What more could be conceded to such beasts As all of you, so sunk and base as you, Than a mere man? A man among such beasts Was miracle enough: yet him you doubt, Him you forsake, him fain would you destroy-- With the Venetians at your gate, the Nuncio Thus--(see the baffled hypocrite!) and, best, The Prefect there!

Druses. No, Hakeem, ever thine!

Nuncio. He lies--and twice he lies--and thrice he lies! Exalt thyself, Mahound! Exalt thyself!

Dja. Druses! we shall henceforth be far away-- Out of mere mortal ken--above the cedars-- But we shall see ye go, hear ye return, Repeopling the old solitudes,--through thee, My Khalil! Thou art full of me: I fill Thee full--my hands thus fill thee! Yester-eve, --Nay, but this morn, I deemed thee ignorant Of all to do, requiring word of mine To teach it: now, thou hast all gifts in one, With truth and purity go other gifts, All gifts come clustering to that. Go, lead My people home whate'er betide! [Turning to the Druses.] Ye take This Khalil for my delegate? To him Bow as to me? He leads to Lebanon-- Ye follow?

Druses. We follow! Now exalt thyself!

Dja. [Raises LOYS.] Then to thee, Loys! How I wronged thee, Loys! Yet, wronged, no less thou shalt have full revenge, Fit for thy noble self, revenge--and thus. Thou, loaded with such wrongs, the princely soul, The first sword of Christ's sepulchre--thou shalt Guard Khalil and my Druses home again! Justice, no less, God's justice and no more, For those I leave!--to seeking this, devote Some few days out of thy Knight's brilliant life: And, this obtained them, leave their Lebanon, My Druses' blessing in thine ears--(they shall Bless thee with blessing sure to have its way) --One cedar-blossom in thy ducal cap, One thought of Anael in thy heart,--perchance, One thought of him who thus, to bid thee speed, His last word to the living speaks! This done, Resume thy course, and, first amidst the first In Europe, take my heart along with thee! Go boldly, go serenely, go augustly-- What shall withstand thee then? [He bends over ANAEL.] And last to thee! Ah, did I dream I was to have, this day, Exalted thee? A vain dream: hast thou not Won greater exaltation? What remains But press to thee, exalt myself to thee? Thus I exalt myself, set free my soul!

[He stabs himself. As he falls, supported by KHALIL and LOYS, the VENETIANS enter; the ADMIRAL advances.

Admiral. God and St. Mark for Venice! Plant the Lion!

[At the clash of the planted standard, the Druses shout, and move tumultuously forward, LOYS drawing his sword.

Dja. [Leading them a few steps between KHALIL and LOYS.] On to the Mountain! At the Mountain, Druses! [Dies.

A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON

A TRAGEDY

This play was written in 1843 at the request of Macready, and very rapidly, in four or five days. A misunderstanding with Macready, fully related in Mrs. Orr's Life and Letters of Robert Browning, I. 168-184, and in Mr. Gosse's Personalia, led to a breach between the two friends.

The play was received with great applause, but circumstances prevented it from being kept on the boards. It has, however, been reproduced both in England and in America, near the close of Browning's life and after his death. Helen Faucit, afterward Lady Martin, took the part of Mildred. The play was printed shortly after it first appeared, as No. V. of Bells and Pomegranates.

PERSONS

MILDRED TRESHAM. GUENDOLEN TRESHAM. THOROLD, Earl Tresham. AUSTIN TRESHAM. HENRY, Earl Mertoun. GERARD, and other Retainers of Lord Tresham.

TIME, 17--

Act I

SCENE I. The interior of a lodge in LORD TRESHAM'S park. Many Retainers crowded at the window, supposed to command a view of the entrance to his mansion. GERARD, the Warrener, his back to a table on which are flagons, etc.

1st Retainer. Ay, do! push, friends, and then you 'll push down me! --What for? Does any hear a runner's foot Or a steed's trample or a coach-wheel's cry? Is the Earl come or his least poursuivant? But there's no breeding in a man of you Save Gerard yonder: here 's a half-place yet, Old Gerard!

Gerard. Save your courtesies, my friend. Here is my place.

2d Ret. Now, Gerard, out with it! What makes you sullen, this of all the days I' the year? To-day that young rich bountiful Handsome Earl Mertoun, whom alone they match With our Lord Tresham through the countryside, Is coming here in utmost bravery To ask our master's sister's hand?

Ger. What then?

2d Ret. What then? Why, you, she speaks to, if she meets Your worship, smiles on as you hold apart The boughs to let her through her forest walks, You, always favorite for your no-deserts, You 've heard, these three days, how Earl Mertoun sues To lay his heart and house and broad lands too At Lady Mildred's feet: and while we squeeze Ourselves into a mousehole lest we miss One congee of the least page in his train, You sit o' one side--"there 's the Earl," say I-- "What then?" say you!

3d Ret. I 'll wager he has let Both swans he tamed for Lady Mildred swim Over the falls and gain the river!

Ger. Ralph, Is not to-morrow my inspecting-day For you and for your hawks?

4th Ret. Let Gerard be! He 's coarse-grained, like his carved black cross-bow stock. Ha, look now, while we squabble with him, look! Well done, now--is not this beginning, now, To purpose?

1st Ret. Our retainers look as fine-- That 's comfort. Lord, how Richard holds himself With his white staff! Will not a knave behind Prick him upright?

4th Ret. He's only bowing, fool! The Earl's man bent us lower by this much.

1st Ret. That's comfort. Here's a very cavalcade!

3d Ret. I don't see wherefore Richard, and his troop Of silk and silver varlets there, should find Their perfumed selves so indispensable On high days, holidays! Would it so disgrace Our family, if I, for instance, stood-- In my right hand a cast of Swedish hawks, A leash of greyhounds in my left?--

Ger. --With Hugh The logman for supporter, in his right The bill-hook, in his left the brushwood-shears!

3d Ret. Out on you, crab! What next, what next? The Earl!

1st Ret. Oh Walter, groom, our horses, do they match The Earl's? Alas, that first pair of the six-- They paw the ground--Ah, Walter! and that brute Just on his haunches by the wheel!

6th Ret. Ay--Ay! You, Philip, are a special hand, I hear, At soups and sauces: what 's a horse to you? D' ye mark that beast they 've slid into the midst So cunningly?--then, Philip, mark this further; No leg has he to stand on!

1st Ret. No? That's comfort.

2d Ret. Peace, Cook! The Earl descends.--Well, Gerard, see The Earl at least! Come, there 's a proper man, I hope! Why, Ralph, no falcon, Pole or Swede, Has got a starrier eye.

3d Ret. His eyes are blue-- But leave my hawks alone!

4th Ret. So young, and yet So tall and shapely!

5th Ret. Here 's Lord Tresham's self! There now--there 's what a nobleman should be! He's older, graver, loftier, he's more like A House's head!

2d Ret. But you 'd not have a boy --And what's the Earl beside?--possess too soon That stateliness?

1st Ret. Our master takes his hand-- Richard and his white staff are on the move-- Back fall our people--(tsh!--there 's Timothy Sure to get tangled in his ribbon-ties, And Peter's cursed rosette 's a-coming off!) --At last I see our lord's back and his friend's; And the whole beautiful bright company Close round them: in they go! [_Jumping down from the window-bench, and making for the table and its jugs._] Good health, long life Great joy to our Lord Tresham and his House!

6th Ret. My father drove his father first to court, After his marriage-day--ay, did he!

2nd Ret. God bless Lord Tresham, Lady Mildred, and the Earl! Here, Gerard, reach your beaker!

Ger. Drink, my boys! Don't mind me--all 's not right about me--drink!

2d Ret. [Aside.] He 's vexed, now, that he let the show escape! [To GER.] Remember that the Earl returns this way.

Ger. That way?

2d Ret. Just so.

Ger. Then my way 's here. [Goes.

2d Ret. Old Gerard Will die soon--mind, I said it! He was used To care about the pitifullest thing That touched the House's honor, not an eye But his could see wherein: and on a cause Of scarce a quarter this importance, Gerard Fairly had fretted flesh and bone away In cares that this was right, nor that was wrong, Such point decorous, and such square by rule-- He knew such niceties, no herald more: And now--you see his humor: die he will!

2d Ret. God help him! Who's for the great servants'-hall To hear what's going on inside? They'd follow Lord Tresham into the saloon.

3d Ret. I!--

4th Ret. I!-- Leave Frank alone for catching, at the door, Some hint of how the parley goes inside! Prosperity to the great House once more! Here's the last drop!

1st Ret. Have at you! Boys, hurrah!

Act I, Scene II — A saloon in the Mansion.

Enter LORD TRESHAM, LORD MERTOUN, AUSTIN, and GUENDOLEN.

Tresham. I welcome you, Lord Mertoun, yet once more, To this ancestral roof of mine. Your name --Noble among the noblest in itself, Yet taking in your person, fame avers, New price and lustre,--(as that gem you wear, Transmitted from a hundred knightly breasts, Fresh chased and set and fixed by its last lord, Seems to rekindle at the core)--your name Would win you welcome!

Mertoun. Thanks!

Tresh. --But add to that, The worthiness and grace and dignity Of your proposal for uniting both Our Houses even closer than respect Unites them now--add these, and you must grant One favor more, nor that the least,--to think The welcome I should give;--'t is given! My lord, My only brother, Austin--he 's the king's. Our cousin, Lady Guendolen--betrothed To Austin: all are yours.

Mer. I thank you--less For the expressed commendings which your seal, And only that, authenticates--forbids My putting from me ... to my heart I take Your praise ... but praise less claims my gratitude, Than the indulgent insight it implies Of what must needs be uppermost with one Who comes, like me, with the bare leave to ask, In weighed and measured unimpassioned words, A gift, which, if as calmly 't is denied, He must withdraw, content upon his cheek, Despair within his soul. That I dare ask Firmly, near boldly, near with confidence That gift, I have to thank you. Yes, Lord Tresham, I love your sister--as you 'd have one love That lady ... oh more, more I love her! Wealth, Rank, all the world thinks me, they're yours, you know, To hold or part with, at your choice--but grant My true self, me without a rood of land, A piece of gold, a name of yesterday, Grant me that lady, and you ... Death or life?

Guendolen. [Apart to AUS.] Why, this is loving, Austin!

Austin. He 's so young!

Guen. Young? Old enough, I think, to half surmise He never had obtained an entrance here, Were all this fear and trembling needed.

Aus. Hush! He reddens.

Guen. Mark him, Austin; that 's true love! Ours must begin again.

Tresh. We 'll sit, my lord. Ever with best desert goes diffidence. I may speak plainly nor be misconceived. That I am wholly satisfied with you On this occasion, when a falcon's eye Were dull compared with mine to search out faults, Is somewhat. Mildred's hand is hers to give Or to refuse.

Mer. But you, you grant my suit? I have your word if hers?

Tresh. My best of words If hers encourage you. I trust it will. Have you seen Lady Mildred, by the way?

Mer. I ... I ... our two demesnes, remember, touch; I have been used to wander carelessly After my stricken game: the heron roused Deep in my woods, has trailed its broken wing Through thicks and glades a mile in yours,--or else Some eyass ill-reclaimed has taken flight And lured me after her from tree to tree, I marked not whither. I have come upon The lady's wondrous beauty unaware, And--and then ... I have seen her.

Guen. [Aside to AUS.] Note that mode Of faltering out that, when a lady passed, He, having eyes, did see her! You had said-- "On such a day I scanned her, head to foot; Observed a red, where red should not have been, Outside her elbow; but was pleased enough Upon the whole." Let such irreverent talk Be lessoned for the future!

Tresh. What 's to say May be said briefly. She has never known A mother's care; I stand for father too. Her beauty is not strange to you, it seems-- You cannot know the good and tender heart, Its girl's trust and its woman's constancy, How pure yet passionate, how calm yet kind, How grave yet joyous, how reserved yet free As light where friends are--how imbued with lore The world most prizes, yet the simplest, yet The ... one might know I talked of Mildred--thus We brothers talk!

Mer. I thank you.

Tresh. In a word, Control 's not for this lady; but her wish To please me outstrips in its subtlety My power of being pleased: herself creates The want she means to satisfy. My heart Prefers your suit to her as 't were its own. Can I say more?

Mer. No more--thanks, thanks--no more!

Tresh. This matter then discussed ...

Mer. --We 'll waste no breath On aught less precious. I 'm beneath the roof Which holds her: while I thought of that, my speech To you would wander--as it must not do, Since as you favor me I stand or fall. I pray you suffer that I take my leave!

Tresh. With less regret 't is suffered, that again We meet, I hope, so shortly.

Mer. We? again?-- Ah yes, forgive me--when shall ... you will crown Your goodness by forthwith apprising me When ... if ... the lady will appoint a day For me to wait on you--and her.

Tresh. So soon As I am made acquainted with her thoughts On your proposal--howsoe'er they lean-- A messenger shall bring you the result.

Mer. You cannot bind me more to you, my lord. Farewell till we renew ... I trust, renew A converse ne'er to disunite again.

Tresh. So may it prove!

Mer. You, lady, you, sir, take My humble salutation!

Guen. and Aus. Thanks!

Tresh. Within there!

(Servants enter. TRESHAM conducts MERTOUN to the door. Meantime AUSTIN remarks)

Well, Here I have an advantage of the Earl, Confess now! I 'd not think that all was safe Because my lady's brother stood my friend! Why, he makes sure of her--"do you say, yes-- She 'll not say, no,"--what comes it to beside? I should have prayed the brother, "speak this speech, For Heaven's sake urge this on her--put in this-- Forget not, as you 'd save me, t' other thing,-- Then set down what she says, and how she looks, And if she smiles, and" (in an under breath) "Only let her accept me, and do you And all the world refuse me, if you dare!"

Guen. That way you'd take, friend Austin? What a shame I was your cousin, tamely from the first Your bride, and all this fervor's run to waste! Do you know you speak sensibly to-day? The Earl's a fool.

Aus. Here's Thorold. Tell him so!

Tresh. [Returning.] Now, voices, voices! 'St! the lady 's first! How seems he?--seems he not ... come, faith give fraud The mercy-stroke whenever they engage! Down with fraud, up with faith! How seems the Earl? A name! a blazon! if you knew their worth, As you will never! come--the Earl?

Guen. He 's young.

Tresh. What 's she? an infant save in heart and brain. Young! Mildred is fourteen, remark! And you ... Austin, how old is she?

Guen. There 's tact for you! I meant that being young was good excuse If one should tax him ...

Tresh. Well?

Guen. --With lacking wit.

Tresh. He lacked wit? Where might he lack wit, so please you?

Guen. In standing straighter than the steward's rod And making you the tiresomest harangue, Instead of slipping over to my side And softly whispering in my ear, "Sweet lady, Your cousin there will do me detriment He little dreams of: he 's absorbed, I see, In my old name and fame--be sure he 'll leave My Mildred, when his best account of me Is ended, in full confidence I wear My grandsire's periwig down either cheek. I 'm lost unless your gentleness vouchsafes" ...

Tresh. ... "To give a best of best accounts, yourself, Of me and my demerits." You are right! He should have said what now I say for him. You golden creature, will you help us all? Here 's Austin means to vouch for much, but you --You are ... what Austin only knows! Come up, All three of us: she 's in the library No doubt, for the day 's wearing fast. Precede!

Guen. Austin, how we must--!

Tresh. Must what? Must speak truth, Malignant tongue! Detect one fault in him! I challenge you!

Guen. Witchcraft 's a fault in him, For you 're bewitched.

Tresh. What 's urgent we obtain Is, that she soon receive him--say, to-morrow-- Next day at furthest.

Guen. Ne'er instruct me!

Tresh. Come! --He 's out of your good graces, since forsooth, He stood not as he 'd carry us by storm With his perfections! You 're for the composed Manly assured becoming confidence! --Get her to say, "To-morrow," and I'll give you ... I 'll give you black Urganda, to be spoiled With petting and snail-paces. Will you? Come!

Act I, Scene III — MILDRED'S Chamber. A painted window overlooks the Park. MILDRED and GUENDOLEN

Guen. Now, Mildred, spare those pains. I have not left Our talkers in the library, and climbed The wearisome ascent to this your bower In company with you,--I have not dared ... Nay, worked such prodigies as sparing you Lord Mertoun's pedigree before the flood, Which Thorold seemed in very act to tell --Or bringing Austin to pluck up that most Firm-rooted heresy--your suitor's eyes, He would maintain, were gray instead of blue-- I think I brought him to contrition!--Well, I have not done such things, (all to deserve A minute's quiet cousins' talk with you,) To be dismissed so coolly!

Mildred. Guendolen! What have I done? what could suggest ...

Guen. There, there! Do I not comprehend you 'd be alone To throw those testimonies in a heap, Thorold's enlargings, Austin's brevities, With that poor silly heartless Guendolen's Ill-timed misplaced attempted smartnesses-- And sift their sense out? now, I come to spare you Nearly a whole night's labor. Ask and have! Demand, be answered! Lack I ears and eyes? Am I perplexed which side of the rock-table The Conqueror dined on when he landed first, Lord Mertoun's ancestor was bidden take-- The bow-hand or the arrow-hand's great meed? Mildred, the Earl has soft blue eyes!

Mil. My brother-- Did he ... you said that he received him well?

Guen. If I said only "well" I said not much. Oh, stay--which brother?

Mil. Thorold! who--who else?

Guen. Thorold (a secret) is too proud by half,-- Nay, hear me out--with us he 's even gentler Than we are with our birds. Of this great House The least retainer that e'er caught his glance Would die for him, real dying--no mere talk: And in the world, the court, if men would cite The perfect spirit of honor, Thorold's name Rises of its clear nature to their lips. But he should take men's homage, trust in it, And care no more about what drew it down. He has desert, and that, acknowledgment; Is he content?

Mil. You wrong him, Guendolen.

Guen. He 's proud, confess; so proud with brooding o'er The light of his interminable line, An ancestry with men all paladins, And women all ...

Mil. Dear Guendolen, 't is late! When yonder purple pane the climbing moon Pierces, I know 't is midnight.

Guen. Well, that Thorold Should rise up from such musings, and receive One come audaciously to graft himself Into this peerless stock, yet find no flaw, No slightest spot in such an one ...

Mil. Who finds A spot in Mertoun?

Guen. Not your brother; therefore, Not the whole world.

Mil. I am weary, Guendolen. Bear with me!

Guen. I am foolish.

Mil. Oh no, kind! But I would rest.

Guen. Good night and rest to you! I said how gracefully his mantle lay Beneath the rings of his light hair?

Mil. Brown hair.

Guen. Brown? why, it is brown: how could you know that?

Mil. How? did not you--Oh, Austin 't was declared His hair was light, not brown--my head!--and look, The moon-beam purpling the dark chamber! Sweet, Good night!

Guen. Forgive me--sleep the soundlier for me! [Going, she turns suddenly. Mildred! Perdition! all 's discovered! Thorold finds --That the Earl's greatest of all grandmothers Was grander daughter still--to that fair dame Whose garter slipped down at the famous dance! [Goes.

Mil. Is she--can she be really gone at last? My heart! I shall not reach the window. Needs Must I have sinned much, so to suffer!

She lifts the small lamp which is suspended before the Virgin's image in the window, and places it by the purple pane.

There! [She returns to the seat in front. Mildred and Mertoun! Mildred, with consent Of all the world and Thorold, Mertoun's bride! Too late! 'T is sweet to think of, sweeter still To hope for, that this blessed end soothes up The curse of the beginning; but I know It comes too late: 't will sweetest be of all To dream my soul away and die upon. [A noise without. The voice! Oh why, why glided sin the snake Into the paradise Heaven meant us both? [The window opens softly. A low voice sings.

There 's a woman like a dew-drop, she 's so purer than the purest; And her noble heart 's the noblest, yes, and her sure faith 's the surest: And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of lustre Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape cluster, Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted marble: Then her voice's music ... call it the well's bubbling, the bird's warble!

[A figure wrapped in a mantle appears at the window.

And this woman says, "My days were sunless and my nights were moonless, Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart's outbreak tuneless, If you loved me not!" And I who--(ah, for words of flame!) adore her, Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her--

[He enters, approaches her seat, and bends over her.

_I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me, And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she makes me!_

[The EARL throws off his slouched hat and long cloak.

My very heart sings, so I sing, Beloved!

Mil. Sit, Henry--do not take my hand!

Mer. 'T is mine. The meeting that appalled us both so much Is ended.

Mil. What begins now?

Mer. Happiness Such as the world contains not.

Mil. That is it. Our happiness would, as you say, exceed The whole world's best of blisses: we--do we Deserve that? Utter to your soul, what mine Long since, Beloved, has grown used to hear, Like a death-knell, so much regarded once, And so familiar now; this will not be!

Mer. Oh, Mildred, have I met your brother's face? Compelled myself--if not to speak untruth, Yet to disguise, to shun, to put aside The truth, as--what had e'er prevailed on me Save you, to venture? Have I gained at last Your brother, the one scarer of your dreams, And waking thoughts' sole apprehension too? Does a new life, like a young sunrise, break On the strange unrest of our night, confused With rain and stormy flaw--and will you see No dripping blossoms, no fire-tinted drops On each live spray, no vapor steaming up, And no expressless glory in the East? When I am by you, to be ever by you, When I have won you and may worship you, Oh, Mildred, can you say "this will not be"?

Mil. Sin has surprised us, so will punishment.

Mer. No--me alone, who sinned alone!

Mil. The night You likened our past life to--was it storm Throughout to you then, Henry?

Mer. Of your life I spoke--what am I, what my life, to waste A thought about when you are by me?--you It was, I said my folly called the storm And pulled the night upon. 'T was day with me-- Perpetual dawn with me.

Mil. Come what come will, You have been happy; take my hand!

Mer. [After a pause.] How good Your brother is! I figured him a cold-- Shall I say, haughty man?

Mil. They told me all. I know all.

Mer. It will soon be over.

Mil. Over? Oh, what is over? what must I live through And say, "'t is over"? Is our meeting over? Have I received in presence of them all The partner of my guilty love--with brow Trying to seem a maiden's brow--with lips Which make believe that when they strive to form Replies to you and tremble as they strive, It is the nearest ever they approached A stranger's ... Henry, yours that stranger's ... lip-- With cheek that looks a virgin's, and that is ... Ah God, some prodigy of thine will stop This planned piece of deliberate wickedness In its birth even! some fierce leprous spot Will mar the brow's dissimulating! I Shall murmur no smooth speeches got by heart, But, frenzied, pour forth all our woeful story, The love, the shame, and the despair--with them Round me aghast as round some cursed fount That should spirt water, and spouts blood. I'll not ... Henry, you do not wish that I should draw This vengeance down? I 'll not affect a grace That 's gone from me--gone once, and gone forever!

Mer. Mildred, my honor is your own. I 'll share Disgrace I cannot suffer by myself. A word informs your brother I retract This morning's offer; time will yet bring forth Some better way of saving both of us.

Mil. I'll meet their faces, Henry!

Mer. When? to-morrow! Get done with it!

Mil. Oh, Henry, not to-morrow! Next day! I never shall prepare my words And looks and gestures sooner.--How you must Despise me!

Mer. Mildred, break it if you choose, A heart the love of you uplifted--still Uplifts, through this protracted agony, To heaven! but, Mildred, answer me,--first pace The chamber with me--once again--now, say Calmly the part, the ... what it is of me You see contempt (for you did say contempt) --Contempt for you in! I would pluck it off And cast it from me!--but no--no, you 'll not Repeat that?--will you, Mildred, repeat that?

Mil. Dear Henry!

Mer. I was scarce a boy--e'en now What am I more? And you were infantine When first I met you; why, your hair fell loose On either side! My fool's-cheek reddens now Only in the recalling how it burned That morn to see the shape of many a dream --You know we boys are prodigal of charms To her we dream of--I had heard of one, Had dreamed of her, and I was close to her, Might speak to her, might live and die her own, Who knew? I spoke. Oh, Mildred, feel you not That now, while I remember every glance Of yours, each word of yours, with power to test And weigh them in the diamond scales of pride, Resolved the treasure of a first and last Heart's love shall have been bartered at its worth, --That now I think upon your purity And utter ignorance of guilt--your own Or other's guilt--the girlish undisguised Delight at a strange novel prize--(I talk A silly language, but interpret, you!) If I, with fancy at its full, and reason Scarce in its germ, enjoined you secrecy, If you had pity on my passion, pity On my protested sickness of the soul To sit beside you, hear you breathe, and watch Your eyelids and the eyes beneath--if you Accorded gifts and knew not they were gifts-- If I grew mad at last with enterprise And must behold my beauty in her bower Or perish--(I was ignorant of even My own desires--what then were you?) if sorrow-- Sin--if the end came--must I now renounce My reason, blind myself to light, say truth Is false and lie to God and my own soul? Contempt were all of this!

Mil. Do you believe ... Or, Henry, I 'll not wrong you--you believe That I was ignorant. I scarce grieve o'er The past! We 'll love on; you will love me still!

Mer. Oh, to love less what one has injured! Dove, Whose pinion I have rashly hurt, my breast-- Shall my heart's warmth not nurse thee into strength? Flower I have crushed, shall I not care for thee? Bloom o'er my crest, my fight-mark and device! Mildred, I love you and you love me!

Mil. Go! Be that your last word. I shall sleep to-night.

Mer. This is not our last meeting?

Mil. One night more.

Mer. And then--think, then!

Mil. Then, no sweet courtship-days, No dawning consciousness of love for us, No strange and palpitating births of sense From words and looks, no innocent fears and hopes, Reserves and confidences: morning's over!

Mer. How else should love's perfected noontide follow? All the dawn promised shall the day perform.

Mil. So may it be! but-- You are cautious, Love? Are sure that unobserved you scaled the walls?

Mer. Oh, trust me! Then our final meeting 's fixed To-morrow night?

Mil. Farewell! Stay, Henry ... wherefore? His foot is on the yew-tree bough: the turf Receives him: now the moonlight as he runs Embraces him--but he must go--is gone. Ah, once again he turns--thanks, thanks, my Love! He's gone. Oh, I 'll believe him every word! I was so young, I loved him so, I had No mother, God forgot me, and I fell. There may be pardon yet: all 's doubt beyond. Surely the bitterness of death is past!

Act II

SCENE. The Library.

Enter LORD TRESHAM, hastily.

Tresh. This way! In, Gerard, quick!

[As GERARD enters, TRESHAM secures the door.

Now speak! or, wait-- I'll bid you speak directly. [Seats himself. Now repeat Firmly and circumstantially the tale You just now told me; it eludes me; either I did not listen, or the half is gone Away from me. How long have you lived here? Here in my house, your father kept our woods Before you?

Ger. --As his father did, my lord. I have been eating, sixty years almost, Your bread.

Tresh. Yes, yes. You ever were of all The servant in my father's house, I know, The trusted one. You'll speak the truth.

Ger. I 'll speak God's truth. Night after night ...

Tresh. Since when?

Ger. At least A month--each midnight has some man access To Lady Mildred's chamber.

Tresh. Tush, "access"-- No wide words like "access" to me!

Ger. He runs Along the woodside, crosses to the south, Takes the left tree that ends the avenue ...

Tresh. The last great yew-tree?

Ger. You might stand upon The main boughs like a platform. Then he ...

Tresh. Quick!

Ger. Climbs up, and, where they lessen at the top, --I cannot see distinctly, but he throws, I think--for this I do not vouch--a line That reaches to the lady's casement--

Tresh. --Which He enters not! Gerard, some wretched fool Dares pry into my sister's privacy! When such are young, it seems a precious thing To have approached,--to merely have approached, Got sight of, the abode of her they set Their frantic thoughts upon! He does not enter? Gerard?

Ger. There is a lamp that 's full i' the midst, Under a red square in the painted glass Of Lady Mildred's ...

Tresh. Leave that name out! Well? That lamp?

Ger. --Is moved at midnight higher up To one pane--a small dark-blue pane: he waits For that among the boughs: at sight of that, I see him, plain as I see you, my lord, Open the lady's casement, enter there ...

Tresh. --And stay?

Ger. An hour, two hours.

Tresh. And this you saw Once?--twice?--quick!

Ger. Twenty times.

Tresh. And what brings you Under the yew-trees?

Ger. The first night I left My range so far, to track the stranger stag That broke the pale, I saw the man.

Tresh. Yet sent No cross-bow shaft through the marauder?

Ger. But He came, my lord, the first time he was seen, In a great moonlight, light as any day, From Lady Mildred's chamber.

Tresh. [After a pause.] You have no cause --Who could have cause to do my sister wrong?

Ger. Oh, my lord, only once--let me this once Speak what is on my mind! Since first I noted All this, I've groaned as if a fiery net Plucked me this way and that--fire if I turned To her, fire if I turned to you, and fire If down I flung myself and strove to die. The lady could not have been seven years old When I was trusted to conduct her safe Through the deer-herd to stroke the snow-white fawn I brought to eat bread from her tiny hand Within a month. She ever had a smile To greet me with--she ... if it could undo What's done, to lop each limb from off this trunk ... All that is foolish talk, not fit for you-- I mean, I could not speak and bring her hurt For Heaven's compelling. But when I was fixed To hold my peace, each morsel of your food Eaten beneath your roof, my birth-place too, Choked me. I wish I had grown mad in doubts What it behoved me do. This morn it seemed Either I must confess to you, or die: Now it is done, I seem the vilest worm That crawls, to have betrayed my lady!

Tresh. No-- No, Gerard!

Ger. Let me go!

Tresh. A man, you say: What man? Young? Not a vulgar hind? What dress?

Ger. A slouched hat and a large dark foreign cloak Wraps his whole form; even his face is hid; But I should judge him young: no hind, be sure!

Tresh. Why?

Ger. He is ever armed: his sword projects Beneath the cloak.

Tresh. Gerard,--I will not say No word, no breath of this!

Ger. Thanks, thanks, my lord! [Goes.

TRESHAM paces the room. After a pause,

Oh, thought's absurd!--as with some monstrous fact Which, when ill thoughts beset us, seems to give Merciful God that made the sun and stars. The waters and the green delights of earth, The lie! I apprehend the monstrous fact-- Yet know the maker of all worlds is good, And yield my reason up inadequate To reconcile what yet I do behold-- Blasting my sense! There's cheerful day outside: This is my library, and this the chair My father used to sit in carelessly After his soldier-fashion, while I stood Between his knees to question him: and here Gerard our gray retainer,--as he says, Fed with our food, from sire to son, an age-- Has told a story--I am to believe! That Mildred ... oh, no, no! both tales are true, Her pure cheek's story and the forester's! Would she, or could she, err--much less, confound All guilts of treachery, of craft, of ... Heaven Keep me within its hand!--I will sit here Until thought settle and I see my course. Avert, O God, only this woe from me!

[As he sinks his head between his arms on the table, GWENDOLEN'S voice is heard at the door.

Lord Tresham! [She knocks.] Is Lord Tresham there?

[TRESHAM, hastily turning, pulls down the first book above him and opens it.

Tresh. Come in! [She enters. Ha, Guendolen!--good morning.

Guen. Nothing more?

Tresh. What should I say more?

Guen. Pleasant question! more? This more. Did I besiege poor Mildred's brain Last night till close on morning with "the Earl," "The Earl"--whose worth did I asseverate Till I am very fain to hope that ... Thorold, What is all this? You are not well!

Tresh. Who, I? You laugh at me.

Guen. Has what I'm fain to hope, Arrived then? Does that huge tome show some blot In the Earl's 'scutcheon come no longer back Than Arthur's time?

Tresh. When left you Mildred's chamber?

Guen. Oh, late enough, I told you! The main thing To ask is, how I left her chamber,--sure, Content yourself, she'll grant this paragon Of Earls no such ungracious ...

Tresh. Send her here!

Guen. Thorold?

Tresh. I mean--acquaint her, Guendolen, --But mildly!

Guen. Mildly?

Tresh. Ah, you guessed aright! I am not well: there is no hiding it. But tell her I would see her at her leisure-- That is, at once! here in the library! The passage in that old Italian book We hunted for so long is found, say, found-- And if I let it slip again ... you see, That she must come--and instantly!

Guen. I'll die Piecemeal, record that, if there have not gloomed Some blot i' the 'scutcheon!

Tresh. Go! or, Guendolen, Be you at call,--with Austin, if you choose,-- In the adjoining gallery! There, go: [GUENDOLEN goes. Another lesson to me! You might bid A child disguise his heart's sore, and conduct Some sly investigation point by point With a smooth brow, as well as bid me catch The inquisitorial cleverness some praise! If you had told me yesterday, "There's one You needs must circumvent and practise with, Entrap by policies, if you would worm The truth out: and that one is--Mildred!" There, There--reasoning is thrown away on it! Prove she's unchaste ... why, you may after prove That she's a poisoner, traitress, what you will! Where I can comprehend naught, naught's to say, Or do, or think! Force on me but the first Abomination,--then outpour all plagues, And I shall ne'er make count of them!

(Enter MILDRED.)

Mil.. What book Is it I wanted, Thorold? Guendolen Thought you were pale; you are not pale. That book? That's Latin surely.

Tresh.. Mildred, here's a line, (Don't lean on me: I'll English it for you) "Love conquers all things." What love conquers them? What love should you esteem--best love?

Mil. True love.

Tresh. I mean, and should have said, whose love is best Of all that love or that profess to love?

Mil. The list's so long: there's father's, mother's, husband's ...

Tresh. Mildred, I do believe a brother's love For a sole sister must exceed them all. For see now, only see! there's no alloy Of earth that creeps into the perfect'st gold Of other loves--no gratitude to claim; You never gave her life, not even aught That keeps life--never tended her, instructed, Enriched her--so, your love can claim no right O'er her save pure love's claim: that's what I call Freedom from earthliness. You'll never hope To be such friends, for instance, she and you, As when you hunted cowslips in the woods Or played together in the meadow hay. Oh yes--with age, respect comes, and your worth Is felt, there's growing sympathy of tastes, There's ripened friendship, there's confirmed esteem:--Much head these make against the new-comer! The startling apparition, the strange youth-- Whom one half-hour's conversing with, or, say, Mere gazing at, shall change (beyond all change This Ovid ever sang about) your soul ... Her soul, that is,--the sister's soul! With her 'T was winter yesterday; now, all is warmth, The green leaf 's springing and the turtle's voice, "Arise and come away!" Come whither?--far Enough from the esteem, respect, and all The brother's somewhat insignificant Array of rights! All which he knows before, Has calculated on so long ago! I think such love, (apart from yours and mine,) Contented with its little term of life, Intending to retire betimes, aware How soon the background must be place for it, --I think, am sure, a brother's love exceeds All the world's love in its unworldliness.

Mil. What is this for?

Tresh. This, Mildred, is it for! Or, no, I cannot go to it so soon! That's one of many points my haste left out-- Each day, each hour throws forth its silk-slight film Between the being tied to you by birth, And you, until those slender threads compose A web that shrouds her daily life of hopes And fears and fancies, all her life, from yours: So close you live and yet so far apart! And must I rend this web, tear up, break down The sweet and palpitating mystery That makes her sacred? You--for you I mean, Shall I speak, shall I not speak?

Mil. Speak!

Tresh. I will, Is there a story men could--any man Could tell of you, you would conceal from me? I'll never think there 's falsehood on that lip. Say "There is no such story men could tell," And I'll believe you, though I disbelieve The world--the world of better men than I, And women such as I suppose you. Speak! [After a pause.] Not speak? Explain then! Clear it up then! Move Some of the miserable weight away That presses lower than the grave! Not speak? Some of the dead weight, Mildred! Ah, if I Could bring myself to plainly make their charge Against you! Must I, Mildred? Silent still? [After a pause.] Is there a gallant that has night by night Admittance to your chamber? [After a pause.] Then, his name! Till now, I only had a thought for you: But now,--his name!

Mil. Thorold, do you devise Fit expiation for my guilt, if fit There be! 'T is naught to say that I'll endure And bless you,--that my spirit yearns to purge Her stains off in the fierce renewing fire: But do not plunge me into other guilt! Oh, guilt enough! I cannot tell his name.

Tresh. Then judge yourself! How should I act? Pronounce!

Mil. Oh, Thorold, you must never tempt me thus! To die here in this chamber by that sword Would seem like punishment: so should I glide, Like an arch-cheat, into extremest bliss! 'T were easily arranged for me: but you-- What would become of you?

Tresh. And what will now Become of me? I'll hide your shame and mine From every eye; the dead must heave their hearts Under the marble of our chapel-floor; They cannot rise and blast you. You may wed Your paramour above our mother's tomb; Our mother cannot move from 'neath your foot. We too will somehow wear this one day out: But with to-morrow hastens here--the Earl! The youth without suspicion face can come From heaven, and heart from ... whence proceed such hearts? I have dispatched last night at your command A missive bidding him present himself To-morrow--here--thus much is said; the rest Is understood as if 't were written down-- "His suit finds favor in your eyes." Now dictate This morning's letter that shall countermand Last night's--do dictate that!

Mil. But, Thorold--if I will receive him as I said?

Tresh. The Earl?

Mil. I will receive him.

Tresh. [Starting up.] Ho there! Guendolen!

(GUENDOLEN and AUSTIN enter.)

And, Austin, you are welcome, too! Look there! The woman there!

Aus. and Guen. How? Mildred?

Tresh. Mildred once! Now the receiver night by night, when sleep Blesses the inmates of her father's house, --I say, the soft sly wanton that receives Her guilt's accomplice 'neath this roof which holds You, Guendolen, you, Austin, and has held A thousand Treshams--never one like her! No lighter of the signal-lamp her quick Foul breath near quenches in hot eagerness To mix with breath as foul! no loosener O' the lattice, practised in the stealthy tread, The low voice and the noiseless come-and-go! Not one composer of the bacchant's mien Into--what you thought Mildred's, in a word! Know her!

Guen. Oh, Mildred, look to me, at least! Thorold--she's dead, I'd say, but that she stands Rigid as stone and whiter!

Tresh. You have heard ...

Guen. Too much! You must proceed no further.

Mil. Yes-- Proceed! All's truth. Go from me!

Tresh.. All is truth, She tells you! Well, you know, or ought to know, All this I would forgive in her. I'd con Each precept the harsh world enjoins, I'd take Our ancestors' stern verdicts one by one, I'd bind myself before them to exact The prescribed vengeance--and one word of hers, The sight of her, the bare least memory Of Mildred, my one sister, my heart's pride Above all prides, my all in all so long, Would scatter every trace of my resolve. What were it silently to waste away And see her waste away from this day forth, Two scathèd things with leisure to repent, And grow acquainted with the grave, and die Tired out if not at peace, and be forgotten? It were not so impossible to bear. But this--that, fresh from last night's pledge renewed Of love with the successful gallant there, She calmly bids me help her to entice, Inveigle an unconscious trusting youth Who thinks her all that's chaste and good and pure, --Invites me to betray him ... who so fit As honor's self to cover shame's arch-deed? --That she'll receive Lord Mertoun--(her own phrase)-- This, who could bear? Why, you have heard of thieves, Stabbers, the earth's disgrace, who yet have laughed, "Talk not to me of torture--I'll betray No comrade I've pledged faith to!"--you have heard Of wretched women--all but Mildreds--tied By wild illicit ties to losels vile You'd tempt them to forsake; and they'll reply "Gold, friends, repute, I left for him, I find In him, why should I leave him then for gold, Repute or friends?"--and you have felt your heart Respond to such poor outcasts of the world As to so many friends; bad as you please, You've felt they were God's men and women still, So, not to be disowned by you. But she That stands there, calmly gives her lover up As means to wed the Earl that she may hide Their intercourse the surelier: and, for this, I curse her to her face before you all. Shame hunt her from the earth! Then Heaven do right To both! It hears me now--shall judge her then! [As MILDRED faints and falls, TRESHAM rushes out.

Aus. Stay, Tresham, we'll accompany you!

Guen. We? What, and leave Mildred? We? Why, where's my place But by her side, and where yours but by mine? Mildred--one word! Only look at me, then!

Aus. No, Guendolen! I echo Thorold's voice. She is unworthy to behold ...

Guen. Us two? If you spoke on reflection, and if I Approved your speech--if you (to put the thing At lowest) you the soldier, bound to make The king's cause yours and fight for it, and throw Regard to others of its right or wrong, --If with a death-white woman you can help, Let alone sister, let alone a Mildred, You left her--or if I, her cousin, friend This morning, playfellow but yesterday, Who said, or thought at least a thousand times, "I'd serve you if I could," should now face round And say, "Ah, that's to only signify I'd serve you while you're fit to serve yourself, So long as fifty eyes await the turn Of yours to forestall its yet half-formed wish, I'll proffer my assistance you'll not need-- When every tongue is praising you, I'll join The praisers' chorus--when you're hemmed about With lives between you and detraction--lives To be laid down if a rude voice, rash eye, Rough hand should violate the sacred ring Their worship throws about you,--then indeed, Who'll stand up for you stout as I?" If so We said, and so we did,--not Mildred there Would be unworthy to behold us both, But we should be unworthy, both of us, To be beheld by---by--your meanest dog, Which, if that sword were broken in your face Before a crowd, that badge torn off your breast, And you cast out with hooting and contempt, --Would push his way through all the hooters, gain Your side, go off with you and all your shame To the next ditch you choose to die in! Austin, Do you love me? Here's Austin, Mildred,--here's Your brother says he does not believe half--- No, nor half that--of all he heard! He says, Look up and take his hand!

Aus. Look up and take My hand, dear Mildred!

Mil. I--I was so young! Beside, I loved him, Thorold--and I had No mother; God forgot me: so, I fell.

Guen. Mildred!

Mil. Require no further! Did I dream That I could palliate what is done? All's true. Now, punish me! A woman takes my hand? Let go my hand! You do not know, I see. I thought that Thorold told you.

Guen. What is this? Where start you to?

Mil. Oh, Austin, loosen me! You heard the whole of it--your eyes were worse, In their surprise, than Thorold's! Oh, unless You stay to execute his sentence, loose My hand! Has Thorold gone, and are you here?

Guen. Here, Mildred, we two friends of yours will wait Your bidding; be you silent, sleep or muse! Only, when you shall want your bidding done, How can we do it if we are not by? Here's Austin waiting patiently your will! One spirit to command, and one to love And to believe in it and do its best, Poor as that is, to help it--why, the world Has been won many a time, its length and breadth, By just such a beginning!

Mil. I believe If once I threw my arms about your neck And sunk my head upon your breast, that I Should weep again.

Guen. Let go her hand now, Austin! Wait for me. Pace the gallery and think On the world's seemings and realities, Until I call you. [AUSTIN goes.

Mil. No--I cannot weep. No more tears from this brain--no sleep--no tears! O Guendolen, I love you!

Guen. Yes: and "love" Is a short word that says so very much! It says that you confide in me.

Mil. Confide!

Guen. Your lover's name, then! I've so much to learn, Ere I can work in your behalf!

Mil. My friend, You know I cannot tell his name.

Guen. At least He is your lover? and you love him too?

Mil. Ah, do you ask me that?--but I am fallen So low!

Guen. You love him still, then?

Mil. My sole prop Against the guilt that crushes me! I say, Each night ere I lie down, "I was so young-- I had no mother, and I loved him so!" And then God seems indulgent, and I dare Trust him my soul in sleep.

Guen. How could you let us E'en talk to you about Lord Mertoun then?

Mil. There is a cloud around me.

Guen. But you said You would receive his suit in spite of this?

Mil. I say there is a cloud ...

Guen. No cloud to me! Lord Mertoun and your lover are the same!

Mil. What maddest fancy ...

Guen. [Calling aloud.] Austin! (spare your pains-- When I have got a truth, that truth I keep)--

Mil. By all you love, sweet Guendolen, forbear! Have I confided in you ...

Guen. Just for this! Austin!--Oh, not to guess it at the first! But I did guess it--that is, I divined, Pelt by an instinct how it was: why else Should I pronounce you free from all that heap Of sins which had been irredeemable? I felt they were not yours--what other way Than this, not yours? The secret's wholly mine!

Mil. If you would see me die before his face ...

Guen. I'd hold my peace! And if the Earl returns To-night?

Mil. Ah Heaven, he's lost!

Guen. I thought so. Austin!

(Enter AUSTIN.)

Oh, where have you been hiding?

Aus. Thorold's gone, I know not how, across the meadow-land. I watched him till I lost him in the skirts O' the beech-wood.

Guen. Gone? All thwarts us.

Mil. Thorold too?

Guen. I have thought. First lead this Mildred to her room. Go on the other side: and then we'll seek Your brother: and I'll tell you, by the way, The greatest comfort in the world. You said There was a clue to all. Remember, Sweet, He said there was a clue! I hold it. Come!