University of Virginia Library

SCENE VI.

GARCIA and COUNCIL; SYLVEYRA, (guarded.)
GARCIA.
My duty
To our lamented chief, my murdered friend,
Bids me pronounce a painful accusation:
That done, I leave it to the council's wisdom
To judge his answer, and decide his fate.
Unhappy youth! it is with grief I charge thee
With having stained thy honors, nobly won,
By dark conspiracy, by meanly joining
In basest vengeance with a vile assassin.

SYLVEYRA.
O! Garcia, wrong not by so base a name
A gallant, generous, and departed soldier,
Lavish of life in friendship's sacred cause!
Would I alone had met the oppressive arm
Of this proud ravisher! what! tho' I owed him
Obedience as a subject! nobler duties
More loudly called me as a man to guard
That injured innocence, and plaintive beauty,
Which his fierce rage had seized for violation.

GARCIA.
Thou lost young man! whose fairer dawn of life
Gave the false promise of progressive virtue,
I quit the little hope, my heart had formed
To find thee guiltless, while I hear thee thus,
With the bold insolence of vice, defend
The villain, who destroyed his sovereign's life
By the base wound of an envenomed sword.

SYLVEYRA.
By an envenomed sword! can this be true?

GARCIA.
The dying ruffian, with mysterious triumph,
Joyed in his crime.

SYLVEYRA.
Could friendship be the mask
Of blackest vengeance?

GARCIA.
When I seized thy sword
In the confusion of that fatal conflict
It seemed, in aid of the accurst assassin,
To point its murd'rous aim at Castro's heart.

SYLVEYRA.
Think not an abject love of life can lead me
To clear my innocence!—I know too well
The tyrant's jealousy, which e'en in death
Will rage, to rob me of the only treasure,
That makes life lovely in Sylveyra's eyes.
But just attention to my wounded honor
Bids me proclaim, my sword was only drawn
To interrupt their conflict.

GARCIA.
Couldst thou prove
That generous purpose, thy untainted honor
Would, with the force of the meridian beam,
Start from this passing cloud: but, hapless youth!
The only witness that perchance might clear
Thy sullied fame, is that departing hero,
Whose pale lips, now we strongly fear, have closed
To speak no more; and for myself, I grieve,
While painful truth impels me to repeat,
That if my eye deceived me not, thy sword
Was basely levelled at his sacred life.

FIRST OFFICER.
Now Garcia, thou has paid thy debt to friendship;
Our duty points to justice.—

A MESSENGER,
(entering.)
Suspend your resolution, valiant chiefs!
It is the Viceroy's will:—he haply gains
Some little portion of reviving strength,
And has commanded his attendant train
To bear him to the council, that his sentence—
But see! his mighty mind, tho' worn with torture,
Anticipates my message—