University of Virginia Library

Scene, an eminence, a Beacon on the summit.
Lacy, Wallace, Lennox, &c. &c.
Several of the Band
(confusedly).
But patience!

One of the Band.
Curses on that Traitor, Oswald!—
Our Captain made a prey to foul device!—

Len.
(to Wallace).
His tool, the wandering Beggar, made last night
A plain confession, such as leaves no doubt,
Knowing what otherwise we know too well,
That she revealed the truth. Stand by me now;
For rather would I have a nest of vipers
Between my breast-plate and my skin, than make
Oswald my special enemy, if you
Deny me your support.

Lacy.
We have been fooled—
But for the motive?

Wal.
Natures such as his
Spin motives out of their own bowels, Lacy!
I learn'd this when I was a Confessor.
I know him well; there needs no other motive
Than that most strange incontinence in crime
Which haunts this Oswald. Power is life to him
And breath and being; where he cannot govern,
He will destroy.

Lacy.
To have been trapped like moles!—
Yes, you are right, we need not hunt for motives:
There is no crime from which this man would shrink;
He recks not human law; and I have noticed
That often when the name of God is uttered,
A sudden blankness overspreads his face.

Len.
Yet, reasoner as he is, his pride has built
Some uncouth superstition of its own.

Wal.
I have seen traces of it.

Len.
Once he headed
A band of Pirates in the Norway seas;
And when the King of Denmark summoned him
To the oath of fealty, I well remember,
'Twas a strange answer that he made; he said,
“I hold of Spirits, and the Sun in heaven.”

Lacy.
He is no madman.

Wal.
A most subtle doctor
Were that man, who could draw the line that parts
Pride and her daughter, Cruelty, from Madness,
That should be scourged, not pitied. Restless Minds,
Such Minds as find amid their fellow-men
No heart that loves them, none that they can love,
Will turn perforce and seek for sympathy
In dim relation to imagined Beings.

One of the Band.
What if he mean to offer up our Captain
An expiation and a sacrifice
To those infernal fiends!

Wal.
Now, if the event
Should be as Lennox has foretold, then swear,
My Friends, his heart shall have as many wounds
As there are daggers here.

Lacy.
What need of swearing!

One of the Band.
Let us away!

Another.
Away!

A third.
Hark! how the horns
Of those Scotch Rovers echo through the vale.

Lacy.
Stay you behind; and when the sun is down,
Light up this beacon.

One of the Band.
You shall be obeyed.

[They go out together.