Ord. Why that's my case; and yet the soul recoils from it'Tis so with me at least. But you, perhaps,

Have sterner feelings?

Isid.

Something troubles you.

How shall I serve you? By the life you gave me,

By all that makes that life of value to me,

My wife, my babes, my honor, I swear to you,
Name it, and I will toil to do the thing,
If it be innocent! But this, my lord!
Is not a place where you could perpetrate,
No, nor propose a wicked thing.
When ten strides off we know 'tis cheerful moonlight,
Collects the guilt, and crowds it round the heart.

It must be innocent.

Ord.

The darkness,

Thyself be judge.

One of our family knew this place well.

Isid. Who? when? my lord?

Ord. What boots it, who or when?

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

[They hang up their torches on some ridge in the cavern.

He was a man different from other men,

And he despised them, yet revered himself.

Isid. (aside.) He? He despise? Thou'rt speaking of thyself! I am on my guard however: no surprise.

What, he was mad?

Ord.

[Then to Ordonio.

All men seemed mad to him!

Nature had made him for some other planet,

And pressed his soul into a human shape

By accident or malice. In this world

He found no fit companion.

And phantom thoughts unsought-for troubled him.
Something within would still be shadowing out
All possibilities; and with these shadows
His mind held dalliance. Once, as so it happened,
A fancy crossed him wilder than the rest:

To this in moody murmur and low voice
He yielded utterance, as some talk in sleep:
The man who heard him.—

Why didst thou look round?
Isid. I have a prattler three years old, my lord!
In truth he is my darling. As I went

From forth my door, he made a moan in sleep-
But I am talking idly-pray proceed!

And what did this man?

Ord.

With this human hand

He gave a substance and reality

To that wild fancy of a possible thing.-
Well it was done!

Why babblest thou of guilt?

The deed was done, and it passed fairly off.
And he whose tale I tell thee-dost thou listen?
Isid. I would, my lord, you were by my fireside,
I'd listen to you with an eager eye,

Though you began this cloudy tale at midnight.
But I do listen-pray proceed, my lord.

Ord.

Where was I?

Isid. He of whom you tell the tale-
Ord. Surveying all things with a quiet scorn,
Tamed himself down to living purposes,
The occupations and the semblances
Of ordinary men-and such he seemed!
But that same over ready agent-he-
Isid. Ah! what of him, my lord?
Ord.
He proved a traitor,
Betrayed the mystery to a brother traitor,

And they between them hatch'd a damned plot
To hunt him down to infamy and death.

What did the Valdez? I am proud of the name

Since he dared do it.

[Ordonio grasps his sword, and turns off from Isidore, then after a pause returns.

Our links burn dimly.

Isid. A dark tale darkly finished! Nay, my lord!

Tell what he did.

Ord. That which his wisdom prompted

VOL. VII.

R

He made the traitor meet him in this cavern,

And here he kill'd the traitor.

Isid.

No! the fool!
He had not wit enough to be a traitor.

Poor thick-eyed beetle! not to have foreseen
That he who gulled thee with a whimpered lie
To murder his own brother, would not scruple
To murder thee, if e'er his guilt grew jealous,
And he could steal upon thee in the dark!

Ord. Thou wouldst not then have come, if—-
Isid. Oh yes, my lord!

I would have met him arm'd, and scar'd the coward.

[Isidore throws off his robe; shows himself armed, and

draws his sword.

Ord. Now this is excellent and warms the blood!

My heart was drawing back, drawing me back

With weak and womanish scruples. Now my vengeance
Beckons me onwards with a warrior's mien,

And claims that life, my pity robbed her of—
Now will I kill thee, thankless slave, and count it
Among my comfortable thoughts hereafter.

Isid. And all my little ones fatherless

Die thou first.

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

Ord. I have hurled him down the chasm! treason for treason. He dreamt of it: henceforward let him sleep,

A dreamless sleep, from which no wife can wake him.

His dream too is made out-now for his friend.

[Exit Ordonio.

SCENE II.*— The interior Court of a Saracenic or Gothic Castle, with the iron gate of a dungeon visible.

Ter. Heart-chilling superstition! thou canst glaze

Ev'n pity's eye with her own frozen tear.

* See Appendix. p. 403.

In vain

urge the tortures that await him :
Even Selma, reverend guardian of my childhood,
My second mother, shuts her heart against me!
Well, I have won from her what most imports
The present need, the secret of the dungeon
Known only to herself.-A Moor! a Sorcerer!
No, I have faith, that nature ne'er permitted
Baseness to wear a form so noble. True,

I doubt not, that Ordonio had suborned him
To act some part in some unholy fraud;
As little doubt that for some unknown purpose
He hath baffled his suborner, terror-struck him,
And that Ordonio meditates revenge!

But my resolve is fixed! myself will rescue him,
And learn if haply he knew aught of Alvar.

Enter Valdez.

Val. Still sad?—and gazing at the massive door Of that fell dungeon which thou ne'er had'st sight of, Save what, perchance, thy infant fancy shap'd it When the nurse still'd thy cries with unmeant threats. Now by my faith, girl! this same wizard haunts thee! A stately man, and eloquent and tender

Who then need wonder if a lady sighs

Even at the thought of what these stern Dominicans—
Ter. The horror of their ghastly punishments

Doth so o'ertop the height of all compassion,
That I should feel too little for mine enemy,

If it were possible I could feel more,

Even though the dearest inmates of our household

Were doom'd to suffer them. That such things are-Val. Hush, thoughtless woman!

Ter.

More than a woman's spirit.

Val.

Nay, it wakes within me

No more of this

What if Monviedro or his creatures hear us!

I dare not listen to you.

Ter.
My honored lord,
These were my Alvar's lessons, and whene'er
I bend me o'er his portrait, I repeat them,
As if to give a voice to the mute image.

Val.

-We have mourned for Alvar.

Of his sad fate there now remains no doubt.

Have I no other son ?

Ter.

Speak not of him!

That low imposture! That mysterious picture!
If this be madness, must I wed a madman?
And if not madness, there is mystery,
And guilt doth lurk behind it.

Val.

Is this well?

Ter. Yes, it is truth: saw you his countenance?
How rage, remorse, and scorn, and stupid fear
Displaced each other with swift interchanges?
O that I had indeed the sorcerer's power.-
I would call up before thine eyes the image
Of my betrothed Alvar, of thy first-born!
His own fair countenance, his kingly forehead,
His tender smiles, love's day-dawn on his lips!
That spiritual and almost heavenly light
In his commanding eye-his mien heroic,
Virtue's own native heraldry! to man
Genial, and pleasant to his guardian angel.
Whene'er he gladden'd, how the gladness spread
Wide round him! and when oft with swelling tears,
Flash'd through by indignation he bewail'd
The wrongs of Belgium's martyr'd patriots,
Oh, what a grief was there-for joy to envy,
Or
gaze upon enamor'd!

0 my father!

Recall that morning when we knelt together,
And thou didst bless our loves! O even now,
Even now, my sire! to thy mind's eye present him,
As at that moment he rose up before thee,
Stately, with beaming look! Place, place beside him
Ordonio's dark perturbed countenance !

Then bid me (0 thou could'st not) bid me turn
From him, the joy, the triumph of our kind!
To take in exchange that brooding man who never
Lifts up his eye from the earth, unless to scowl.

Val. Ungrateful woman! I have tried to stifle
An old man's passion! was it not enough,