University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

A wood, wild and savage; an entry to a cave, very much tangled with brushwood, is seen in the background. The time represents the dawn of morning. Basil is discovered standing near the front of the stage in a thoughtful posture, with a couple of pistols laid by him on a piece of projecting rock; he pauses for some time.
Bas.
(alone).
What shall I be some few short moments hence?
Why ask I now? who from the dead will rise
To tell me of that awful state unknown?
But be it what it may, or bliss or torment,
Annihilation, dark and endless rest,
Or some dread thing, man's wildest range of thought
Hath never yet conceiv'd, that change I'll dare
Which makes me any thing but what I am.
I can bear scorpions' stings, tread fields of fire,
In frozen gulfs of cold eternal lie,
Be toss'd aloft through tracts of endless void,
But cannot live in shame.—(Pauses).
O impious thought!
Will the great God of mercy, mercy have
On all but those who are most miserable?
Will he not punish with a pitying hand
The poor, fall'n, froward child?
(Pauses.)
And shall I then against His will offend,
Because He is most good and merciful?
O! horrid baseness? what, what shall I do?
I'll think no more—it turns my dizzy brain—
It is too late to think—what must be, must be—
I cannot live, therefore I needs must die.
[Takes up the pistols, and walks up and down, looking wildly around him, then discovering the cave's mouth.
Here is an entry to some darksome cave,
Where an uncoffin'd corse may rest in peace,
And hide its foul corruption from the earth.
The threshold is unmark'd by mortal foot.
I'll do it here.

[Enters the cave and Exit; a deep silence; then the report of a pistol is heard from the cave, and soon after, enter Rosinberg, Valtomer, two officers and soldiers, almost at the same moment, by different sides of the stage.
Ros.
This way the sound did come.

Valt.
How came ye, soldiers? heard ye that report?

1st Sol.
We heard it, and it seem'd to come from hence,
Which made us this way hie.

Ros.
A horrid fancy darts across my mind.
[A groan heard from the cave.
(To Valt.) Ha! heardst thou that?
Valt.
Methinks it is the groan of one in pain.

[A second groan.
Ros.
Ha! there again!

Valt.
From this cave's mouth, so dark and chok'd with weeds,
It seems to come.

Ros.
I'll enter first.

1st Off.
My lord, the way is tangled o'er with briers:
Hard by a few short paces to the left,
There is another mouth of easier access;
I pass'd it even now.

Ros.
Then show the way.

[Exeunt.