University of Virginia Library

Scene VI.

A Room in the Palace.
LUSKY,
alone.
I start to hear the echoes of my tread,
I who, morn, noon, and night, used to be sieged
By beggars, great and little, proud or meek.
The Palace is as empty as a street
Just swept by grape-shot: not a moving sound.
All smiling, flattering, cringing faces gone.
Misfortune melts the worldling's frigid hold,
And is upon th' adherents of the fallen
Active as beams of equinoctial sun
When first they strike the frosted foliage grown
From a calm snow-fall in an April night.
And such a master! Greater now to me
He seems than ever yet; so calm and clear.—
Where is he now? The last report was good;
But in a battle's hour minutes are months.
Perhaps—perhaps he 's slain—or taken captive!
A prisoner! he a prisoner!—Ha! here he is.
Enter Brangonar, pale and weak.
Sire, Sire! you 're wounded?

BRANGONAR.
No: not in the body.
Lovéro, Lusky. I was taken, when he
Came up and rescued me. I had been slain—
Their swords were at my breast—when he rushed in,
Thrust him upon the enemy's attack,
And took the strokes were meant for me. That was
A great, great death, a great, great deed. The man
Who does a deed so great himself is great.
I have not known Lovéro: would I had.
None of us see so far as we believe.
We are but journeymen, the best of us,
When most we think us masters. God is master.
And oft when we are disobeyed the most,
He is the most obeyed.—Should I have been,
Could I have been other than what I am?
What think you? You have known me, Lusky.

LUSKY.
Sire,
I cannot think you other than you are.

BRANGONAR.
Lusky—Lusky—come nearer, nearer, Lusky—
Jesola—Jesola—

LUSKY
Sire, she 's in the Palace.

Enter Jesola with her daughter.
BRANGONAR.
Is she? Is she?

[He rises from the sofa. Jesola comes forward and throws herself into his arms. Brangonar sinks on the sofa between Jesola and his child, Lusky kneeling beside them. —A file of officers and soldiers in red coats appear at the back of the stage, and then, opening in the middle, the scene opens behind them, and far off on the sea a man-of-war is seen; and the curtain drops.