University of Virginia Library

SCENE VI.

Enter Caab cautiously.
Caab.
Zaphna!—my lord, my lord Zaphna!

Zaph.
Caab!—What dost thou here?

Caab.
O, my good lord—the Prophet—

Zaph.
Damn the Prophet—
Thee, and his other instruments of practice,
The word he utters, and the heaven he worships!

Caab.
O the good angel!—Zaphna!—Mercy take us!
Where have you caught this frenzy!

Zaph.
Out, thou slave!
Thou under serpent, poisoning as thou goest
By curs'd insinuation; leaving still
Thy venom in the track.

Caab.
What this will cost!
When you shall know—what grief, what penitence

Zaph.
I care not—I renounce thy sect—thy master,
And thee thou image of his dross; his vile,
His worst impression.

Caab.
What hath chanced? I hope—
I hope you have not—I am sent dispatch,
To intercept the stroke—and bring you to him.

Zaph.
To intercept it, say you?

Caab.
Yea, my lord—
Sopheian hath sent terms of due submission,
Of suit and humble prayer to be received
To grace and to the law.

Zaph.
Sayst thou, of suit?—
And terms—what terms, good Caab?

Caab.
Nay, I know not—

Zaph.
Pardon a young man's rashness—Say, my friend—

Caab.
In sooth, 'tis but surmise.

Zaph.
Of what? unfold—

Caab.
It were not well.

Zaph.
Kind Caab—

Caab.
Have you e'er
Remark'd a sort of kindness in Sopheian,
Touching our sultan's daughter?

Zaph.
Often—yes—
He doth confess as much.

Caab.
I only know,
The man hath eyes, desires, and appetites;
Whether the lady hath temptations too,
That I know not.

Zaph.
Thou hast a further cause.

Caab.
No more in truth, than what my distant ear
Caught of brief accents, when with Mahomet
He held a private conference.

Zaph.
In private?

Caab.
Yes.

Zaph.
And what didst gather?

Caab.
There, my lord,
Your pardon—
My soul's best worth could scarce abide the charge
Of such a revelation.

Zaph.
He did shew,
A face and port of such an open tendence,
I could not stray—I think—
If he doth hold me fair, and play me deep;
I will have such atonement of his treachery,
Such merciless account—

Caab.
O, let not me,
Be author of ill thoughts—I may have err'd.

Zaph.
Where shall I turn?—If I look up to Heaven,
I am confounded from his attribute,
Nor know the power I pray to—if on earth,
Design, and craft, and covert policy,
Lie ambush'd in the social face of friendship,
And trip at confidence.

Caab.
Take patience to you.

Zaph.
Why was I born?—O, what is man?—a thing,
Form'd for the sport of some facetious deity!
A vessel fill'd with adverse elements,
Wherein his chymist would experiment
The wantonness of warfare.—In his infancy,
The bud how tender!—should he scape the frost,
How short the blossom!—bring him to the fruit,
He ripens into rottenness!—Away
With such an insignificance—an edifice,
Built for the blast, a voyage but for the wreck—
A voyage? no—that hath its chart, its compass,
A star whereby to steer, and haply may
Attain some haven—man is but a skiff,
Toss'd out to chance; his boasted pilot, reason,
A sluggard set to argue, not to act
Against the tempest of contending passions.
Now here, now there, he's thrown; nor knows a steerage—
No ground to anchor, and no skill to guide;
The driving butt of every wind and tide!

[Exeunt.