University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

(Another part of the vessel.)
Juan.
Oh, hers is fairer than the white, still face
Which peeps between the fleeces of the sky,
And flashes silver from each dark wave's crest!
Out on the boasted power of the moon,
Who rules the tides of cold unconscious Ocean—
And only twice in every lazy day!
My lady sways the living tides that run
From heart to pulse, and throb in brow and limb—
The tides that ebb with fear, or flow with joy
A hundred times a day. Ay! hide thy face
Behind the screen of yonder sluggish cloud,
That she whose face is fairer than thy own
May meet me here more safely; for the peril
To both of us is great. Oh, how she started
When, looking vaguely round, her eyes met mine,
And recognised me under my disguise
Of Florestan, the mate. Agrippa's eye
Fastened upon her with a quick suspicion—
I thought that all was lost. Shall I be able
To keep my face, my gestures, and my tongue
In such obedience as my part exacts?
Shall I be able to coerce my passion
When I shall hear the officers and men
Speak rashly of her face, or see them fix
Their look of hungry insolence upon it!
Did I not hear, this very day, two sailors
Call her the destined trophy of Agrippa?
And did my knife not almost leap at once
Out of my sash? And she—can she control
Her glorious eyes and meet me twenty times,
And never even give me one quick look
For other eyes to catch? Oh, who shall measure
The danger of the part we have to play?
And yet how else, if I am to protect her
From still more threatening perils, which the folly
Of her mad, reckless dreamer of a father
Will plunge her into, in untrodden lands
In his great search for youth? How else, how else,
If I am ever to make mine for ever
That truer fount of loveliness and youth
Which sparkles in her eyes, and ripples over
In lightest waves of magic when she speaks,
That truer, brighter fount, from which my soul
Takes such delicious draughts? How old the world
Would grow for me without it; how decrepit
And cold and dull would grow all earthly things!
But hush! I see her, veiled in silver shadow.

(Enter Rosita.)
Rosita.
I cannot sleep for thinking of thy peril;
Thy life hangs on a thread.

Juan.
The thread of gold
That couples it to thine.

Rosita.
If thou wert found
In this disguise, no earthly help could save thee.

Juan.
We will control our eyes. Oh, I would wrap
The cloak of peril round me seven times,
So but I wore it as thy livery.

Rosita.
I would thou wert not here.

Juan.
Oh, didst thou think
That I could stay behind and let thee face
The wild and Protean treachery of ocean,
Towards the regions of fantastic fear,
And not watch over thee? Didst thou imagine
That I could stay in Spain while thou wert seeking
A frightful country, in whose virgin forests
The Indian and the tiger will make peace
To meet a white invader? Oh, not I!
Thy father takes thee to the lands of fever
Whose breath will kill the roses on thy cheeks,
Whose heat will scorch the dewdrops of thy gladness.
In his mad seeking for his own lost youth
He sacrifices thine.

Rosita.
Alas! I know it.

Juan.
I had a plan before we sailed from Spain
To save thee from the folly of his visions,
And carry thee away; but Fate prevented,
Putting the bar of accident between
The wheel-spokes of my purpose; but one day
I mean to do it still, when chance shall favour,
And bear thee back to Europe.

Rosita.
Oh, mine own,
It cannot be. Alas! I cannot do it.
Hast thou not said thyself, a minute since,
That we are sailing to the lands of fever?
Oh, who will nurse him if he sickens there?
I am the only being that he loves.

Juan.
He has no love except the Fount of Youth.

Rosita.
Yes; but of earthly loves he loves me most.

Juan.
And loving thee the lesser of the two,
He shall not step between thyself and me
And rob me of my love.

Rosita.
Another shadow
Than his may step between us.

Juan.
How, another?

Rosita.
Two nights ago I had a dream of death.

Juan.
Oh, love! my love!

Rosita.
I had a dream of death.
I stood alone in an immense cave-temple,
Whose thickset pillars, hewn in the live rock,
Sustained a heavy vault, which seemed to crush
The spirit out. The red and lurid flicker
Of countless torches danced upon the stone,
But all was empty. Suddenly a clash
As of a thousand cymbals shook the vault,
And, starting out of shadow, all about me,
A thousand dusky warriors locked me round
In the wild horror of a dizzy war-dance;
And ever louder grew their guttural cries,
And ever nearer closed the hideous circle
Of painted demons with their brandished arrows,
As I stood trembling in the frightful centre,
Until at last they reached and overwhelmed me,
Beneath their countless numbers. Then, blindfolded,
They led me through the endless echoing caves,
With ceaseless, measured chant of ‘Lo, the victim!
We bring her to the Goddess, the Destroyer,
We bring her to the ever-murdering Beauty,
The Flower of Cruelty, the Scented Throttler,
The wondrous Executioner of Nature.’
And as we wound along in slow procession,
With measured tramp, a strange narcotic odour,
Delicious, and yet horrible, grew stronger,
Until it grew intolerable as pain.
Then we stood still, and in a pealing voice
I heard them cry, ‘Now lay her in the lap
Of the Great Merciless.’ And then they raised me
As if on to an altar; round my throat,
Round limbs and body, strange and snake-like coils,
Which were not snakes, but felt like fleshy thongs,
Elastic and resistless, wound and wound.
I felt my body changing into pulp,
And in the monstrous agony I woke.

Juan.
Oh, hideous and most horrible of dreams!

Rosita.
What dost thou think the murdering goddess was?

Juan.
An empty fear, the strangling goddess, nightmare,
Born of this leaden heat.

Rosita.
Love, I think not;
I think it was a presage of the future,
A foresight of a fate that waits me there.

Juan.
Whate'er it is, it shall be kissed away—
But hush! I see the figure of Agrippa
There in the moonlight; and he must not find us
So near together—Every time I see
His bold unholy eyes upon thy beauty,
It sets my fingers playing with my knife.
Away, away, he must not find us here!