Yal. Wild talk, my son! But thy excess of feel

ing

[Averting himself.

Anost, I fear, it hath unhinged his brain.

Ord. (now in soliloquy, and now addressing his father: and just after the speech has com

menced, Teresa reappears and advances slowly).

Say, I had laid a body in the sun!

Well! in a month there swarm forth from the corse
A thousand, nay, ten thousand sentient beings
In place of that one man.-Say, I had kill'd him!
[Teresa starts, and stops, listening.

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

Val. O mere madness!

[Teresa moves hastily forwards, and places herself directly before Ordonio.

Ord. (checking the feeling of surprize, and forcing his tones into an expression of playful courtesy.)

Teresa? or the Phantom of Teresa?

Ter. Alas! the Phantom only, if in truth The substance of her Being, her Life's life,

Have ta'en it's flight through Alvar's death-woundWhere

(A pause.)

(Even coward Murder grants the dead a grave)

O tell me, Valdez !-answer me, Ordonio!

Where lies the corse of my betrothed husband?

Ord. There, where Ordonio likewise would fain lie! In the sleep-compelling earth, in unpierced darkness. For while we LIVE

An inward day that never, never sets,

Glares round the soul, and mocks the closing eye

lids!

Over his rocky grave the Fir-grove sighs A lulling ceaseless dirge! "T is well with HIM. [Strides off in agitation towards the altar, but returns as Valdez is speaking.

Ter. (recoiling with the expression appropriate to the passsion).

The rock! the fir-grove!

Hush! I will ask him.

[To Valdez.

Didst thou hear him say it?

Val. Urge him not-not now

This we beheld. Nor He nor I know more,
Than what the magic imagery reveal'd.

The assassin, who press'd foremost of the three

Ord. A tender-hearted, scrupulous, grateful villain, Whom I will strangle!

Val. (looking with anxious disquiet at his Son, yet
attempting to proceed with his description.)
While his two companions
Ord. Dead! dead already! what care we for the

dead?

Val. (To Teresa). Pity him! soothe him! disenchant his spirit!

These supernatural shows, this strange disclosure,
And this too fond affection, which still broods
O'er Alvar's fate, and still burns to avenge it-
These, struggling with his hopeless love for you,
Distemper him, and give reality

To the creatures of his fancy

Ord.

Is it so?

Yes! yes! even like a child, that, too abruptly
Roused by a glare of light from deepest sleep,
Starts up bewilder'd and talks idly.

(Then mysteriously.)

Father!

What if the Moors that made my brother's grave,

Even now were digging ours? What if the bolt,

Though aim'd, I doubt not, at the son of Vardez,
Yet miss'd its true aim when it fell on Alvar?

Val. Alvar ne'er fought against the Moors,-say

rather,

He was their advocate; but you had march'd
With fire and desolation through their villages-
Yet he by chance was captured.

Ord.

Unknown, perhaps,

Captured, yet, as the son of Valdez, murder'd.
Leave all to me. Nay, whither, gentle Lady?
Val. What seek you now?

Ter.

To guide me

A better, surer light

Both Val. and Ord. Whither?

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

Val.

To find a lover!

Suits that a high-born maiden's modesty?

O folly and shame! Tempt not my rage, Teresa !

Ter. Hopeless, I fear no human being's rage.

And am I hastening to the arms

-O Heaven!

I haste but to the grave of my beloved!

[Exit, Valdez following after her.

Ord. This, then, is my reward! and I must love her? Scorn'd! shudder'd at! yet love her still? yes! yes! By the deep feelings of Revenge and Hate

I will still love her-woo her-win her too!

(A pause) Isidore safe and silent, and the portrait Found on the wizard-he, belike, self-poisoned To escape the crueller flames- -My soul shouts triumph !

The mine is undermined! Blood! blood! blood!

They thirst for thy blood! thy blood, Ordonio!
[A pause.

T'he hunt is up! and in the midnight wood,
With lights to dazzle and with nets they seek
A timid prey and lo! the tiger's eye
Glares in the red flame of his hunter's torch!
To Isidore I will dispatch a message,

And lure him to the cavern! ay, that cavern!
He cannot fail to find it. Thither I'll lure him,
Whence he shall never, never more return!

[Looks through the side window.

A rim of the sun lies yet upon the sea,

And now 't is gone!

All shall be done to-night.

[Exit.

ACT IV.

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

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

Thanks to that little crevice, Which lets the moonlight in! I'll go and sit by it. To peep at a tree, or see a he-goat's beard, Or hear a cow or two breathe loud in their sleep— Any thing but this crash of water-drops!

These dull abortive sounds that fret the silence

With puny thwartings and mock opposition!
So beats the death-watch to a dead man's ear.
[He goes out of sight, opposite to the patch af
moonlight: returns after a minute's elapse, in
an ecstasy of fear.

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

[Isidore stands staring at another recess in the
cavern. In the mean time Ordonio enters with

a torch, and halloos to Isidore.

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

I

ning

swear, I saw it move.

Ord. (goes into the recess, then returns, and with

great scorn).

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

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

Ord. What scared

you, then!

Isi.

You see that little rift?

But first permit me!

[Lights his torch at Ordonio's, and while lighting it.

(A lighted torch in the hand,

Is no unpleasant object here one's breath

Floats round the flame, and makes as many colours

As the thin clouds that travel near the moon.)

You see that crevice there ?

My torch extinguished by these water drops,

And marking that the moonlight came from thence, I stept in to it, meaning to sit there;