University of Virginia Library

Scene III.

—The Antechamber of the Alcazar, as before.
Enter Maria.
MARIA
(alone).
Snatch'd from us in a moment, with her reason
Darken'd for this life! Melancholy Queen,
Why wert thou startled from thy world of dreams
To emptier mockeries.

Enter Mondeiar.
MONDEIAR.
Is the Queen safe?

MARIA.
Gone,—
And all the regal gauds.

MONDEIAR.
Sad chance! Padilla,
Turning the tide of battle through the streets,
Caught an uncertain rumour from the crowd
Of danger menacing the Queen, and sent me
Hither to shield her.

MARIA.
Giron's treacherous art
Has miss'd its aim, but in its failure, given
Our royal lady to the conqueror's grasp,
Which will consign her to a living tomb
Whence never voice shall issue.

Enter Soldier.
SOLDIER.
Our city's saved;
Its streets are freed from spoilers, and its gates
Secured and sentinell'd; beyond all's lost.
Don Giron, when surrounded, madly spurr'd
His fiery courser up the rocky steeps
Which boldest climbers shun; and though his horse
Leap'd with heroic rage from crag to crag,
Striking strange fire that flash'd beneath his hoofs
Like lightning, near the topmost ridge the steed,
Trampling on slender ledge that shiver'd, fell;
And the infuriate general of an hour
Lies crush'd beneath him.
[Exit Soldier.

MARIA.
Then my husband stands
Supreme, alone, and from the cloud of treachery
The hero shall emerge!

Enter Tendilla and Captains.
TENDILLA.
Is Padilla yet
Return'd from victory?

MARIA.
Not yet; he stops not
While any toils of nobleness remain
To count those done.

TENDILLA.
We'll heap new honours on him;
Giron is dead; our foes command the heights
A furlong from our gates, and our sole hope
Is his consent to lead us.

MARIA.
He shall give it.
Will all the troops acknowledge him as leader,
Sole and supreme?

TENDILLA.
All who from martial virtue
Require the sense of honour, will be proud
Frankly to lay aside all claims for duty
To him in whose clear sovereignty of soul
They place implicit trust; but there are veterans
With sinews firm and courage nicely temper'd
By discipline and use, who want the touch
Of valour's generous impulse; these complain
Of long arrears of pay, and will not serve
Without some present largess.

MARIA.
I have jewels.
Take and divide them. Could I coin my life-blood,
How gladly would I pour it forth to win
Padilla means of glory!

TENDILLA.
Noble lady,
If the imparadised spirits of our saints
Now read the generous promptings of your soul,
How must they wish the treasures of their shrines
Devoted to sustain them!

MARIA.
True—the shrines—
I'll make it piety to borrow thence
Aid for this mighty need. Padilla comes—
No word to him, if you would have him yours,
Of the base hirelings' claims, or of the treasures
Which, well I know, he would not touch in thought
To win earth's throne; for he holds endless ruin
Lies in such sacrilege.

Enter Padilla.
PADILLA.
Has danger reach'd
The person of the Queen?

MARIA.
She is borne hence
By soldiers who, it seems, found noiseless entrance
Through treachery of her guards.

PADILLA.
Did she endure
The outrage tamely? Did no flashing rage
Confound the traitors?

MARIA.
No; I flung my arms
Around her, and conjured the men who throng'd
Her chamber to retire, and saw them falter
A moment in their purpose. Then her eyes,
Which had been glazed in vacant dulness, swam
In sad affection for me; but they caught
The blaze of jewels in the sceptre raised
Before her couch, and flicker'd into joy
Weak as the pleasure which a toy awakes
In a sick infant. So she pass'd away
Smiling and silent, with the glittering symbols
Of majesty around her, which the robbers
Obsequious bore. Alas! her reason's sunk
Into a slumber which will break no more
Till seraph harps disperse it.

PADILLA
(flinging down his sword).
There—lie there—
My sword has lost its sovereign; it has won
Toledo's freedom from this night's foul ravage,
And shall be drawn no more.

MARIA.
It shall be drawn
To save Castile; you have no rival left;
Giron is dead.

PADILLA.
Dead—rival—how these sounds
Expound each other! Rivalry with us
Was but a race for death, which Giron wins
A little foremost.

TENDILLA.
All the Captains, moved
By one strong impulse, in our utmost need,
Pray you to lead the troops.

PADILLA.
Against my king?
No refuge left—no thin disguise—to veil
The front of treason?

MONDEIAR.
You already wear
Its ban; for Charles himself pronounces all
Who join'd this quarrel traitors, and his Regent
Who in the councils of the camp presides,
By this day's proclamation, offers pardon,
Treasure, and honour, and release of captives,
To any who shall bring you to atone
Treason with instant death.

PADILLA.
I have long felt
My course would have this issue, and long musings
Have braced me to endure it; I am ready;
My work on earth is done.

MARIA.
Think upon us!

MONDEIAR.
Think of the sacred things these walls enfold,
Huge relics of Art's infancy that speak
The great Castilian soul before the Saracen
Struggling from dense barbaric gloom to make
Valour and beauty deathless; tombs that breathe
Of deeds unchronicled, and marbles worn
By kneeling saints, in which our fathers traced
Old martyrdoms and crowns! Before you drop
The sword that rescued these from this day's rapine
Guess the triumphant insults of to-morrow!

TENDILLA.
Feel for the citizens of your famed birthplace
And peasants born in neighbouring fields now shelter'd
Beneath its towers, who drink their native air
With prouder joy because your childhood breathed it;
Men who so prized your fame that when you gave
Adhesion to our enterprise, embraced it,
Asking no reason for the strife which one
So loved thought righteous—who, if now forsaken
By him they trusted, must endure the doom
The Regent threatens.

PADILLA.
What?

TENDILLA.
His order runs
That one of every ten who took arms with you,
Chosen by lot, shall on the gibbet die;
While public scourging, dealt by soldiers' arms
Brand the more cursed survivors—for the crime
Of thinking you their father!

PADILLA.
Have I done this?
O passion wing'd to pierce a state's repose
How little, at the moment, seems the touch
That breaks the placid water, and how vast
The eddies that sweep round it! I cannot leave
Those who so trusted me, but will win peace
For them, or perish with them. I accept
The post you offer; let me have an hour
For household cares, and I will order all things
For one great sally.

TENDILLA.
I shall cheer the hearts
Of thousands with this news.
(Aside to Maria.)
Lady, the rest
We trust to you.

MARIA.
Fear not.
[Exit Tendilla and Captain.
My noble husband,
Let me embrace you with a heart more proud
Than yet has leap'd to yours. You stand apart
In your own majesty, a tower of refuge
Which beams from Heaven illumine.

PADILLA.
Say I stand
Upon the arid sands a desolate mark
For the next lightning; look I as of yore?
Lives in my voice one old familiar tone?
I am all rebel now.

MARIA.
No, true; most true
To your own greatness and your country's need.
Alphonso seeks us; do not cloud his spirit
With your unjust misgivings.

PADILLA.
You are right;
I will not mar the precious gift of youth
To know disaster only when it strikes,
Not when it threatens.

Enter Alphonso.
PADILLA.
My dear son, we left
Your birthday feast untasted; we'll renew it;
We four are join'd again, and we'll ensure
One hour of home-fraught comfort. From the ramparts,
Where I will have our evening banquet spread,
We shall behold the flowering shrubs that droop'd
Over our household feasts. That sunset time
In which our old domestic joys were shatter'd
When foulest outrage summon'd me to arm,
Returns with heavenly lustre that bespeaks
Its golden peace. Mondeiar, inform the captains
Soon after sunset, I will ask their aid
To fix the morning's battle; then come to us.
[Exit Mondeiar.
Each pathway of our garden lives before me,
In such distinct reality, that sense
Like that of touch embraces it, and sunbeams
That burst triumphant through yon watery clouds
Will pierce the woods that shade it, till we seem
To wander through the glades, and feel the arm
About the waist, and head in sport reclined
Upon the shoulder; come we must not lose
A moment of this hour; its glory deepens!

[Exeunt.