University of Virginia Library

ACT III.

SCENE I.

(A chamber in the great rock temple at Bimini.)
High Priest.
This is the Feast of Arrows, and the walls
Of this huge fane of beauty and destruction
Have disappeared, with all their painted demons,
Beneath the dewy tapestry of blossoms
Bright in their transient patterns, while the pillars
Conceal the scars of their forgotten ages
Beneath the garb of odoriferous palms,
And hold each other, like colossal captives,
With Spring's ephemeral chains. Upon the pavement
The stains of human sacrifice are hidden
With fresh-strewn litter of uncounted roses.
The troops of garland girls have done their work,
And all have left. And now for seven days
The countless warriors of this warlike nation,
In silent companies will bring their quivers,
To the slow booming of the gong of gongs,
That every long and copper-headed shaft
May be baptized with poison. Never yet,
Since these stupendous columns first were carved
Out of the living granite by our fathers,
Innumerable centuries ago,
Has venom of such potency been needed,
To stem the growing tide of an invasion;
And never has the yearly Feast of Arrows
Been full of such solemnity as now.
The white invaders, with the impious help
Of the rebellious tribes, have reached our gates
And battle nears. Is all prepared and ready?
Where rise the perilous vapours of thy cauldron?

Indian Sorceress.
The white invaders will not long be white
If they give battle; for the faintest scratch
With arrow or with javelin of my steeping
Will make their pale and leprous bodies blacken,
And fit them for the burial-ground of dogs.
Oh, trust my brew. Have I not worked in poison
Until the very flies that sting me drop
Dead on the floor? The art which we possess,
And have developed since primeval times,
Of feeding snakes on juice of deadly plants,
And then inoculating with their venom,
Increased in strength, the deadly plant itself,
And so augmenting, in a ceaseless circle
The potency of poision, has now reached
Incredible perfection. One black drop
Of our unmixed and last-developed death-juice.
Were it to fall into the mightiest river,
Would poison all the nations on its banks,
And curdle Ocean's self.

High Priest.
What demon shapes
Have risen in thy fumes?

Indian Sorceress.
Three gods of terror
Familiar to my visions, and one new.
First, Eyes-of-Madness, with the scarlet bat-wings;
Then Ice-of-Fear, the god with lidless eye-bails;
And Wince-of-Agony, the great tormentor.
The unknown spirit had a tiger's head,
With human limbs all of the fairest shape,
And ceaselessly he ate them—every limb
Growing again the while he ate the others.
It was a wondrous and terrific vision;
And never since the god of Silent Horror
Placed, years ago, upon my novice head
The cold and restless wreath of living vipers,
Which turned my black hair white, have I beheld
So dread a deity.

High Priest.
I know him well;
He is the great and all-pervading god
Of Cosmic Cruelty, named Ataflis;
And it is owing to his boundless power
That Nature preys for ever on herself,
And that the earth and air and sea are filled with millions
Who feed on others and themselves are eaten.
Is that the singing of thy venom-girls
Which echoes through these temple vaults?

Indian Sorceress.
It is;
And if thou listen, thou wilt hear the words
Of a new song, which I have taught them sing
For this our Feast of Arrows, while we mix
The perilous essence with the vitreous gums
Which serve to glue it to the arrow's head.

High Priest.
Thy maids sing well, and I approve the words.
Thy arrow song is worthy of the temple
Of that gigantic man-devouring Flower—
Goddess at once of Murder and of Beauty—
Whose ever-hungry tentacles can grasp
The living human limbs—whose awful bosom
Is even as ready to engulf a slave
As the small sun-dew to engulf an insect.
The Flower of Cruelty, the lonely Empress
Of virgin forests, whom our sires enshrined
In this rock temple, and who there has grown
In beauty and in appetite, is symbol
Of what pervades the universe itself.
The two great ruling principles of Nature
Are Cruelty and Beauty—Pain and Sunshine.
And even as her iron tendrils grasp
The monthly wretch we give her to devour,
So Nature in her placid beauty murders,
Through sea, and air, and earth. The world is like
The walls in which we stand: Above, the flowers;
And catacombs of dungeons underneath,
All choking full. But, hark! I hear the sound
Of steps approaching: doubtless they are coming
To tell me that the Monarch is in sight.
Atalpa comes to see how we have wreathed
Our walls and columns. Othoxa, get thee gone.

[Exit Indian Sorceress.
(Enter Atalpa, accompanied by two tame panthers and followed by an escort of warriors.)
High Priest.
Lord of the Panthers, ever-young Atalpa!
I bid thee welcome to these sacred caves,
To-day as ever.

Atalpa.
For a thousand years
Have these old columns, on the Feast of Arrows,
Put on their garb of aromatic green,
As regularly bursting into leaf
As if they teemed with sap; and never yet
Has the King failed to come and praise the flowers.
But I, for once, have neither eyes nor nostrils
For wreaths, however sweet; and I have come
With care-o'erclouded forehead, to consult
Upon the means which our religion offers
To stem the white invasion.

High Priest.
My own thoughts
Have not been idle since the news grew darker:
I have gone over all the great invasions
Which we have baffled in the course of ages;
And in each case I find that we have owed
Eventual triumph to one single cause—
Our policy of friendship with the gods.
The gods, remember, are destructive forces;
They act from appetite, and not from justice—
If they were just, there were no need of prayer.
Naught is so mercenary as a god
In man's necessity.

Atalpa.
The whites are few,
Compared with our great legions; but they carry
The bolt of Heaven with them, and their thunder
Shakes the great forest; every echoing peal
Means scores of dead. Their heads are capp'd with steel,
Their breasts with plates which not a shaft can pierce—
Their very fingers are encased in iron.
Had I not seen the corpses of their slain
I still should think them gods; besides, they have
The tribes as their allies.

High Priest.
Now, let me know
What presents thou art bringing to the temple.
Much will depend on that.

Atalpa.
Eleven targes
Of beaten gold, wrought round with figures showing
The war between the leopards and the gods.
Then I have brought thee, in a precious casket,
The famous ruby, called the Eye of Wrath,
And twelve great barrels full of minted gold.

High Priest.
I think the Goddess will accept the gift.

Atalpa.
In presence of the ever-growing peril
There is a thought which haunts me night and day.
Dost thou remember, from remotest ages
The prophecy which says: ‘The day will come
On which this prosperous and victorious state
Will wholly perish, if a white-skinned virgin
Shall not be offered up in sacrifice
To the great goddess?’

High Priest.
Yes, I recollect it;
But it has been interpreted to mean
That she would be miraculously born
With a white skin among us.

Atalpa.
Ay, and rightly;
So long we knew not that a white-skinn'd race
Existed in the world. But now we know it;
And seems it not as if the day were come
For the fulfilment, now that the invaders
Have raised the tribes against us and are marching
Straight on the capital?

High Priest.
Have the white invaders
Their women with them?

Atalpa.
That I cannot answer,
But I intend to ask them for a truce
And send an embassy, and so gain time
To get to know them better. Who comes here?

(Enter the Master of the Sacrifices.)
Master of the Sacrifices.
I come with consternation in my soul
And staggering feet, that scarce can bear my weight
To bring most monstrous news.

Atalpa.
Quick, speak, what is it?
Keep us not in suspense.

Master of the Sacrifices.
A fearful portent,
Big with catastrophe to king and people:
The ever-hungry Goddess of this temple
For the first time in history, has spurned
Her monthly victim.

High Priest.
Spurned her monthly victim?
It cannot be—the omen were too monstrous.

Master of the Sacrifices.
I have just seen it with these very eyes.
Scarce had we placed the gagged and writhing slave—
A virgin of the ebon race of Xu—
In the great Flower's lap, when a convulsion
Shook her prodigious petals. She relaxed
The feelers which had grasped the victim's body
And cast it out alive. We tried again
A second time: again she cast it out,
Alive just as before. And when we made
A third attempt, the miracle took place
Even again, except that then the slave
Was cast out dead.

High Priest.
No such tremendous portent
Has ever tuned man's spirit to disaster,
Since the great star, which trailed a fan of fire
Depopulating Heaven, and the earthquake
Which shook the figures of the gods to pieces,
Gave warning of the most disastrous battle
Which history records.

Atalpa.
Thou sayest well,
Priest of the Scented Murderess; such omen
Has not prepared the minds of men for evil
Since these three hundred years. But in this thing
I see not only presage of disaster,
But something more distinct. When I consider
The peril which surrounds us, and remember
The prophecy of old, the thing assumes
Another shape. I see a thought, a meaning,
A purpose, a command. The tongueless goddess,
In spurning thus the victim that we offer,
Means that she wants another—something new
For her terrific maw; and I can read
Her wish as clear as if she spoke in words.
She wants white flesh; and if we give it not,
The pillars of this state will split and stagger;
And with a crash which will outpeal the thunder
With which the white men's engines shake the air,
The edifice of ages will come down
Upon our heads, and bury us in its fall.

[Exeunt omnes.

SCENE II.

(The Virgin Forest near the Spanish Camp.)
Juan.
O love, look up! What wondrous depths of green,
Bough above bough, and yet more boughs above them.
See how the mossy columns of the trees
Soar and divide and over-curve the gloom
With ever lighter arches, tier on tier.
See how the yellow sunlight, filtering through,
Grows ever greener till it finds the moss
On which we lie. Might not this beryl dome
Which shrines our love be some rare ocean cave,
In whose green lights and shadows during noon
The scaly nereïds and enamoured Tritons
Seek refuge when the arrows of the sun
Strike ocean's heart! Or is it all a dream?
O tell me, love, that all these leaves are real,
And not a vision born of raging thirst
In the delirium of that open boat
Upon the leafless horror of the sea,
Among the dead and dying; and that thou,
Who seemest to be leaning over me,
Art not a phantom of that final hour
Before Fernandez' vessel picked us up,
When I was calling on thy name in vain,
But thy own sweet reality.

Rosita.
Dear love,
Dismiss thy fears. Beneath the soft green light,
Thou art no longer in the open boat,
Dying of thirst; nor yet art thou on earth.
These are the green and silent depths of ocean,
Far down below the surface of the storms,
And I a mermaid, bending over thee.
When some young comely sailor drowns at sea,
We catch his body as it slowly sinks
Through the green fathoms, and we wake him back
With spells and kisses to a deep-sea life.

Juan.
Wert thou a mermaid, as thou say'st thou art,
Thou wouldst be so much fairer than the others,
That the green ocean cave and sea-weed forests
Would grow yet greener with their jealousy;
Thou couldst be but their victim or their queen.

Rosita.
No, here we all are equal, and no discord
Nor spite nor envy mars the placid depths.
Sweet sailor, I will take thee by-and-by
And show thee through the treasuries of ocean,
The caves in which we keep the sunken gold,
And all the shipwrecked jewels of the world.

Juan.
I have a richer treasury, thy heart.

Rosita.
Here will we live together and for ever,
And see no more of earth, save some rare glimpse
When we swim up and sit upon some rock,
Where, while I sing unto my golden harp,
Or watch some lazy vessel in the sunset,
Thou wilt repeat thy vows of merman love.

Juan.
O love, O love! Would that thy words were true!
Oh, I would tell thee that the pale green light,
Which shines so softly in the happy depths,
Is less to me than thou; that the light stems,
Which wave for ever in the briny caves,
Are less divinely supple than thy form;
That the pale rose which lines the ocean shell
Is conquered by the freshness of thy cheek,
The coral by the crimson of thy lips.
Oh, I would tell thee that thy voice outrings
The ocean's summer breeze; and that thy kiss
Is softer than the kiss the seagull's wing
Gives to the panting wave.

Rosita.
Love, hark my song!
I would not be a child of earth,
Which is so full of care;
I would not leave my mermaid life
To be an empress there.

Juan.
But if I were a child of clay,
Wouldst thou not leave the sea,
To share the pain and care and woe,
And live on earth with me?

Rosita.
The ocean's caves are green and sweet,
They know nor sigh nor tear;
The sea-weed forests shed no leaves,
As ends each passing year.

Juan.
Oh, wouldst thou stay where sea-bells bloom,
And let me pine alone;
And give me, as the days go by,
No answer to my moan?

Rosita.
The streets of earth are paved with cares,
Its roofs are tiled with woes;
The bread it eats is made by grief,
From grain that sorrow sows.

Juan.
Oh, wouldst thou sit upon thy rock,
And watch the fading ships;
And never give a kiss to him
Who lives but by thy lips?

Rosita.
Love, I would leave a thousand seas—
A thousand caves that glow—
To share with thee the paths of earth,
And all the tears they know.

Juan.
And so we are together upon earth.
We are on earth—oh, cruelly on earth!
O sweetest, it is time for us to wake
Out of the day-dream that has wrapped us round;
Here, where the dreamy magic of thy voice,
Mixed with the whisper of the leaves above,
Had lulled my soul till I had half forgot
What brought me here. Awake, awake, Rosita!
Emergency is clamouring for an answer,
And peril girds us like a fiery belt!

Rosita.
O love, I was so happy in my dream.
Wilt thou not let us be a little longer
Merman and mermaid, in a cave of pearl—
Here, in the pale green sunlight, where the world,
With all its doubts and hates, and pangs and perils,
Has no existence for us?

Juan.
Would I could!
But danger presses; we must think and act.

Rosita.
Thou deemest the danger greater than it is.

Juan.
I am no craven soul, for whom each mole-hill
Projects the shadow of a toppling mountain.
A hideous danger threatens thee. Agrippa——

Rosita.
I fear him not.

Juan.
Thou little knowest him.
The most destructive and abhorred wild beast
That crouches in the tangles of these forests,
Compared with his ferocity, is kind,
And, measured with his treachery, is loyal.
He is thy father's favourite and tyrant;
His daily evil genius; and thy father,
For some mysterious service past or future,
Has given him the promise of thy hand,
And every day, with more intense insistence,
He presses for fulfilment of the bond.

Rosita.
He will find out that he but wastes his pains.

Juan.
And when he finds it out, and drops the mask
Of love and courtship which conceals his rage,
Woe to thyself and me. His dark soul writhes
Beneath thy scorn; and when fair means have failed
He will use foul.

Rosita.
I can defend myself.
I do not fear his violence.

Juan.
Oh, my love,
Thou knowest not the danger thou art in.
If he were not the mean and cruel coward,
The unrestricted tyrant that he is—
If I could cross his blade in open fight—
Oh, I would rid thee of him soon enough!
But if I gave him challenge, dost thou think
That he would take it? Ere the day was out
I should have got but throttled for my pains.
Oh love, now list. Agrippa's insolence
Has fostered discontent among the soldiers,
Whose lives are being wasted month by month
In a vain, empty enterprise. Fernandez
With Garcia, Morasquez, and some others,
Have formed a plan to suddenly desert,
Seize on a ship, and sail away to Spain.
Love, we must fly.

Rosita.
I cannot leave my father.

Juan.
Thy life depends upon it. As for me,
I owe thy father nothing. Did he not
Place me and others in an open boat,
To die of thirst upon an unsailed ocean?

Rosita.
But I—I owe him all—my very breath,
And many a kiss between the eyes of childhood,
When he would hold me long upon his knee,
And when the Fount of Youth was not as now—
The only thing he loved.

Juan.
For his mad thirst
For that enchanted water which he never
Will reach on earth, he plunges all in woe,
And drags thee into ruin with himself.

Rosita.
The greater need that I, who am the only
True friend he has to warn him of his fate,
Should not desert him. Love, it cannot be.

Juan.
It must, it must! There is no time to lose.
This single opportunity, once wasted,
Will ne'er recur.

Rosita.
I cannot leave my father!
I cannot leave him—even, love, for thee.
But, hark, I hear a faint and distant clarion
Come from the tents. Haste, haste, or thou'lt be missed!
We must return to camp by different ways.
Each kiss is but a danger. Oh, begone!

Juan.
I still shall break thy purposes—think it o'er.
Oh, love, another kiss!

Rosita.
Away! Away!

[Exit Juan.
Rosita
(alone).
Now love is putting duty to the torture,
But it must stand the test. Oh, it were sweet
To fly with him to Spain, and see no more
This wild and cruel Indian world of peril,
And with my hand in his once more to cross
The rippling cornfields, where we used to meet.
It cannot be; no, no, it cannot be;
I cannot leave my father to his fate,
And I must stay beside him to the end.
What figure is approaching through the trees?

(Enter Agrippa.)
Agrippa.
What, here alone—without thy Indian guard?
Not even thy Indian handmaid; in this forest
Which has no paths, and out of sight of camp!
Oh, this is rash!

Rosita.
Thou hast been dogging me!
I care not to be dogged.

Agrippa.
I saw thee leave
The camp alone, and, spurred by love and fear
For thy sweet safety, followed in thy steps
For thy protection.

Rosita.
Does the roe require
To be protected by the skulking wolf?

Agrippa.
The forest is unsafe, however near
The bugle sound. There are wild beasts about.

Rosita.
Thyself, for instance?

Agrippa.
Call me what thou wilt,
Thou art the fairest when thou call'st me names;
Love is the sweetest when he looks most fierce
And wears a mantle made of lion's hide.

Rosita.
And Hate most hideous when his wolfish bristles
Are seen through lambskins.

Agrippa.
Call me wolf again.
It is so sweet to hear thee call me wolf;
Thou hast accustomed me to taunts and insults;
They do no harm, I take them as pet names.

Rosita.
Oh, then I'll call thee courteously Agrippa,
Which is for me the most ill-omened name
Between the earth's two poles.

Agrippa.
I have already
Outstretched the usual patience of a courtship,
In wooing thee so long, and do not thou
Outstretch it further, till it snap in two.
I have thy father's promise; thou art mine.
To-day I woo, to-morrow I shall order.
Fight not too long with fate, and, most of all,
Call not the wolf too often by his name,
Or, if thou dost, wait till he cares to rip.

Rosita.
Ho, ho! the fleece is off; and better so,
It suited thee but little, and thy growl
Is sweeter in my ears than was thy bleat.

Agrippa.
What, did I growl? and yet I am no wolf,
At most a lamb, who happens to have fangs,
And who, in other woods and other seasons,
On one or two occasions in his life,
Has eaten up a woman for less cause
Than thou, young lady, givest him to-day.

Rosita.
I thank thee for the warning, though in truth
I did not need it. Now be pleased to take
Some other path than mine to reach the camp.

Agrippa.
I owe it as a duty to thy father
To see thee safely back.

Rosita.
What, dost thou force
Thy company upon me? Answer plainly.

Agrippa.
Force is an ugly word; it is my duty
To see thee through these brambles, and, besides,
I have a little tale I wish to tell,
About a woman, as we go along.
The story is instructive and pathetic,
And shows the latent goodness of my heart;
I wish to prove how kind a soul I have.

Rosita.
I shall not listen.

Agrippa.
The story is pathetic, is it not?

Rosita.
I have not been attending.

Agrippa.
Were't not wise
To make no more resistance, but accept
So tender-souled a suitor?

Rosita.
Never, never!
Until God's lightning falls upon thy head!
O Thou Omniscient and Omnipotent God,
Give me the strength to fight Thy battle out
Against this man! Oh, never, never!

Agrippa.
Thou wilt think better of it at thy leisure.

Rosita.
If all thy soldiers drag me to the altar,
They shall not force me to become thy wife.
For I will stab thee at the altar's foot,
And be the executioner for God.
The day that thou shalt have recourse to force
Shall be thy last, and mine.

Agrippa.
What, threat of dagger!
I love to see a beauty in her fury,
And know the value of a woman's threat.
It is a pretty bubble.

Rosita.
Look at this.
(She takes a small dagger from her bosom, bares her left arm, and passes the dagger slowly through it.)
Dost thou believe me now? It is for thee,
And not for me, to meditate at leisure,
And weigh the peril of thy scheme to-day.

[Exit.
Agrippa.
By all the fiends who crowd the devil's stair
I thought her not so strong; and for this once
I own that I have reckoned sans my host.
Yes, she is right; it is for me to ponder
And weigh the items of my scheme at leisure.
She is too dangerous, and I must change
My plan from top to bottom, and build up
On other ground the edifice of fortune.
And better so, perhaps. The wind has changed
Since last I viewed the compass, and it brings me
Strange tempting whispers from the Indian king.
She shall not be my wife, but she shall be
A something better than a wife—a victim!
Revenge is sweeter in the cup than love
For one like me; and now that I am free
To give a hearing to Atalpa's offer
And found my altered schemes upon his help.
I can prepare a network of destruction
To wrap around her father and herself.