University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

—Part of a Garden. Leoni pacing backwards and forwards.
LEONI.
There is no cloud upon the placid sky,
There is no motion in the drooping leaves;
I neither like this waiting nor this stillness.
Too much the rest of this still night contrasts
The unrest that is feverish in my soul!
The midnight, with its pale and mournful moon,
That wanders, like an orphan, through the heavens,
Companionless, with its dark boughs, that seem
Still as the heavy shadows which they fling,
This hour is not for enterprise. The heart
Mocks its own projects and its own designs,
So little, with eternal night around,
So worthless, gazing on those distant worlds.
Why, what vain fantasies are these to cross
My mind at such a time! but we are toys
E'en to ourselves. Where can Rinaldo stay?
The banquet hour is past—Ah! here he comes. Enter 2nd Noble hastily.

You come full late, my lord

2ND NOBLE.
I come too soon;
Despair and danger are my comrades here!

LEONI.
What can you mean?

2ND NOBLE.
Mean? that Castruccio's friend
Has stood him in good stead; he came prepared,
Knowing the welcome that he was to meet.
Your uncle and his friends are now in prison,
Condemn'd to death.

LEONI.
The Count Arrezi prisoner!

2ND NOBLE.
Aye—and his shadow falls upon his grave,
He stands so near to it. Just now I pass'd
Beside the market-place; the midnight rang
With the loud hammer's blow, and with the saw
Grating its sullen path way through the wood
Which is to raise the scaffold for to-morrow.
Arrezi there will be the first to die.

LEONI.
Not if my life can ransom his. 'Twas I
Who urged the old man on—with sneer and threat
I silenced his misgivings.

2ND NOBLE.
What can we do?

LEONI.
Rather than let that old man die, I'd kneel
Before the Castrucani, and give up
My head as fitting ransom.

2ND NOBLE.
You would but only add another victim.
We have no choice but flight.

LEONI.
I will not fly,
Though I but stay'd to share Arrezi's scaffold.

2ND NOBLE.
Live for revenge—a better hour may come.

LEONI.
Revenge is all too distant; I will save
Or perish!

2ND NOBLE.
I tell you all is known; what can avail
A single arm?

LEONI.
'Tis to that single arm that I must trust.
There yet remains one sole—one desperate chance—
The risk is mine. (Drawing his dagger.)
This blade has stood, ere now,
My certain friend. (Sheathing it.)
—I'll trust to it again.

2ND NOBLE.
Castruccio's guards are gather'd round his palace;
And, if some cunning tale could win your entrance,
You'd perish, ev'n as you struck the blow.
A hundred swords would straight avenge his death.

LEONI.
I'd brave them all, Rinaldo, in such cause;
But mine's a far more subtle stratagem.

2ND NOBLE.
Your stratagems have not avail'd us much.

LEONI.
The chances of the game have turn'd against us,
And I will pay the forfeit with my head,
Unless I turn them yet again.

2ND NOBLE.
There's something in your courage raises mine;
I'll follow you.

LEONI.
That suits not with my scheme: take you this ring,
And hurry with it to the Florentines,
Who lay in ambush near the ruin'd tower;
Hasten their march; I did not wish their aid
Until our party muster'd in its strength:
But now, our life and death hangs on their speed.
Hence, good Rinaldo.

2ND NOBLE.
Not till I know your purpose for yourself.
Half of the danger is my proper share.

LEONI.
On my right hand alone I must rely.
You may remember, in our boyish days
My father held the Castrucani palace—
The Castrucani were themselves in exile;
I know each turn and winding—there was one,
A secret passage leading to the city,
And from the very room which now Castruccio
Makes his own private chamber—leave that way,
And, Fortune, I will worship thee again.

2ND NOBLE.
Methinks that Fortune owes us some amends
For past ill-favour.

LEONI.
We must away; each moment that we lose
Brings my old kinsman nearer to the scaffold.
Off to the Florentines! Now life and death
Hang on an hour's chance.

[Exeunt different ways.