University of Virginia Library

Scene Fifth.

—Exterior of the Tower—(Night).
Music—Enter Wolf and Wurm, cautiously.
Wolf.
Hush!

Wurm.
Silence!

Wolf.
Soft! From yonder turret high
Methought I heard—Nothing!

Wurm.
And so did I.

Wolf.
No signal! Then I fear Richcraft's success
Will not be signal.

Wurm.
I suspect, no less.

Wolf.
Within the Tower, all's as dark as pitch!

Wurm.
There's something darker rising from that ditch!

Richcraft, covered with mud, rises slowly out of the ditch.
Rich.
(faintly)
Wurm!

Wolf.
It's old Bogie! And he's come for you!

Rich.
Wolf!

Wurm.
Oh! It must be! For he wants you too!

Rich.
Knaves! Don't you know!—the Prince—

Wurm.
Of Darkness! Oh!

Rich.
(advancing)
Fools! I'm Prince Richcraft!

Wolf.
Eh? You don't say so?

Wurm.
His Highness! Is it possible?

(they both go to assist Richcraft out of ditch and lead him forward)
Rich.
Too true!

Wolf.
All over black!

Rich.
I grieve to add—and blue!

Wurm.
How came you in this pickle—pray explain?
Have you been up a flue?

Rich.
No, down a drain!

Wurm.
Into the Tower, then, you never stole?

Rich.
Oh, yes! And went completely through the whole.
Flung through what oft has lost a man his station,
A story utterly without foundation!
The mud I fell in only broke my fall,
But I have spoiled my clothes, both great and small.

Wolf.
Take comfort, sir, and change them.

Rich.
Never! No!
Like to the Pontic Sea whose icy flow
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but still goes on tick,
By rushing up the spout to the Propontic
Without a change—even so, behold, I swear
This jacket and etcetras to wear.
Till I have washed the stains out in a flood
Of blood! By Jingo! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood!

Wurm.
Whose—gracious sir?

Rich.
Finetta's That false fair's—
If all her hairs were lives—

Wolf.
First, catch her hairs!

Rich.
In course! So hounds!—I let you slip, and woe
Betide you, if you let her slip, also!

Wurm.
Footsteps! If it should be the bobbies! Run!

Wolf.
It's but a booby! (looking out)


Rich.
Then you're two to one,
And where he twice a booby—quite his match.

Wurm.
It's a King's messenger, with some despatch.

Rich.
Dispatch him, then! First knock him gently down,
And then we'll hear—the message from the Crown.

Music—They retire—Enter a Messenger—He approaches the Tower, and raises a horn to his mouth, but before he can sound it he is knocked down by Wolf—Wurm takes a letter out of the man's pouch, and hands it to Richcraft.
Rich.
A letter! But of light there's not a spark!

Wurm.
(at back)
I've got a lantern, though it's rather dark.

Rich.
(takes lantern—breaks the seal of letter and reads)
What do I read? My eyes deceive me, surely!
King Gander has been taken very poorly,
And feeling in his head a sort of dizziness,
Is coming home on “urgent private business.”
Accursed chance!

Wurm.
A happy chance, sir, rather.
Let's give Finetta this note from her father,—
'Twill lure her out.

Rich.
O, mischief! thou art quick,
To enter into heads, however thick.
With speed about it! Doff your cloak and cap,
And put on those belonging to this chap;
Then fling his body in the ditch there plump,
(Music—They act accordingly)
Now, take his horn, and blow it like a trump.

(Wurm blows the horn—Finetta appears at the window of Tower—Richcraft and Wolf retire)
Fin.
What means that mournful blast, mysterious stranger?

Wurm.
Madam, your royal father's life's in danger.

Fin.
My father's life in danger! Is he ill?

Wurm.
Dying! but can't die easily, until
He see his darling child, Princess Finetta.

Fin.
What proof of this?

Wurm.
An autographic letter.
Drop me a line, sweet maid, and, by return,
The truth you in a line from him will learn,

Fin.
You'd get me in a line, insidious knave!
I much suspect this is some barbarous “shave.”

Wurm.
I shave a lady! Not with softest soap.

Fin.
Send up the line, then—and beware the rope!
(Music—She lets down the basket—Wurm throws the note in it—Finetta draws up the basket, takes out the note, and reads it.)
My father's hand. I can no longer doubt!
But the seal's broken!—how came that about?
Who dared to ope this scroll, thou, naughty elf?

Wurm.
His gracious Majesty's most royal self.
He wanted to add something, but he couldn't,
And so, on second thoughts, he thought he wouldn't.

Fin.
How like the circumspection of his race!

Wurm.
O, hasten to receive his last embrace.

Fin.
Where is he?

Wurm.
Hard by, in the wood; no further
Could he bear carriage? To delay is murther!

Fin.
I come!

(Music—Finetta gets into the basket and descends)
Wolf.
(aside)
We have her!

Rich.
Seize the jade and gag her.
(as Finetta steps out of the basket, they obey Richcraft's order, by throwing a cloak over her head)
Call up your fellows! O'er the border drag her!
(Wolf hurries out with Finetta)
Would she had forty thousand lives, that I
Might forty thousand ways to take 'em try,
Or that she had but nine lives, like a cat—
But as she has but one, I will take that
In such a way, that no cat of nine tails,
Could ever raise of woe, such horrid wails.
Get me a barrel, stick it full of spikes,
So sharp, nobody ever felt the likes!
In it I'll cram the baggage like a ball,
And roll it down the Brockeneckerthal!
Once off, she'll find her way to the bottom. Mizzle!
(Exit Wurm)
On the hot gridiron of hate I grizzle!
Vengeance, be thou my Lord Mayor; at thy feast,
See if I don't just make myself a beast.
(Exit Prince Richcraft)