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Pray, let me kiss it. Oh, 'tis she! 'tis real!
For my strong pulse is still so sensible

To every touch of thine, that the sweet contact
Strikes certain to it; and now it throbs intelligence.
How comes this?—Are you here to scoff me, lady?
Alas, Floranthe! I am sadly changed

Since last we parted!

Flor. Scoff thee, Octavian!-Ah! thou little know'st
How often I have wept away the night
With thinking on thy fortunes; but, alas!

I ne'er thought this! Oh! what hast thou endured!
Wand'ring, exposed, unsheltered!

Oct. Pish! that's nothing,

I heeded not the storm. Why, I remember,
When last the forkéd lightning struck me down,
I lay upon the rock, and smiled to see

The feeble malice of the elements.

'Tis here [Pointing to his breast.-here, only, I am v. '. nerable.

1 have been galled too deep within, Floranthe, To think upon the petty sufferance

Felt by a holiday and silken fool,

When the rough tempest beats against his body.
Flor. Pray you, be comforted:

I will pour balm into thy bleeding wounds,
And heal them up forever.

Oct. Get thee back!

He who would snatch thee from me, though he fell,—
Fell by this arm, met not his death by me.

I had not fled three days ere I did learn it.
And, sure, thy father, whose delight it is

To torture faithful love, has given thee to him.

The thought does mad me!-Get thee to thy husband!

[Crosses, R. Flor. Then let me greet him here!-For here, Octa

vian,

In firm and maiden holiness I swear,

If thou dost never lead me to the altar,

My life shall waste in cloistered solitude;

And when the passing bell proclaims me dead,
Our convent's votaries will chant their dirge,
To grace a virgin sister's funeral.

Oct. How's this?-What! has thy father, then--Impos

sible!

Does he relent?

Flor. Alas! he is no more!

I needs must grieve, for still he was my father.
And he who stood between thy love and thee,
Is wedded to another.

Oct. Art thou mine, then?

[Bursts into hysterical laughter. Faith, I am very weak: pray pardon me. 'Tis somewhat sudden, this: I am unused To any touch of joy, and it o'ercomes me. I shall weep soon, and then I shall be better. Flor. Nay, calm thy spirits-pr'ythee, now! Oct. Well, well!

Look on me, sweet-my own beloved Floranthe!
Oh! many a time, in anguish, have I brought
That angel form before my fancy's eye,

Till my hot brain has driven me through the wild,
Daring by night the precipice's edge,

To clasp thy airy phantom. This repays me!
Oh! plunge me deep in Ætna's smoky gulf,
And I could wallow calmly in her fires,

Like lazy shepherds basking in the sun,
To hold thee thus at last!

Flor. Restrain this passion:

These starts do wear thee sadly. We will leave this gloom.

Oct. Let us on.

As I do cool, I shudder at myself;

And look with horror back upon this waste,

Where, cheerless, I have strayed, shut out from man,

A solitary wild inhabitant.

Have with thee, sweet! I know each turn and thicket.

Already have I felt what 'tis to lose thee:

They take my life who tear thee from me now; For death alone shall part us. Come, Floranthe! [Exeunt, I..

SCENE IV.-The Sierra de Ronda.

Enter VIROLET, ZORAYDA, and KILMALLOCK, R.

Viro. I tell thee, thou dost lead us wrong, Kilmallock :

See here we measure back the self-same steps
That we have trod before.

Kilm. Faith, Count, then this falls out according to my old luck. How hard it is upon industrious travellers, who follow their noses on a journey, to find out they have been only walking backwards after all! If the world do go round, as they say, certain it has taken a twist extraordinary in the night; else the two sides of the mountain could never have fairly changed places.

Viro. [To Zorayda.] I pr'ythee, be of comfort.
Zoray. I will strive

To keep my heart from sinking; yet these perils
Might shake a firmer spirit. As I slept,

I dreamt my father came to me in wrath,

And held a dagger o'er me.

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Kilm. I seldom knew a woman to go to sleep, that she did not dream Of a truth, though, when a grim fellow flourishes his dagger before the closed "eyes of a lady, it must make her lie a little uneasy."— Well, 'tis no wonder we have, at last, lost our road; for the devil of anything like one is there in this whole abominable Sierra de Ronda.

Viro. Yon rock, which rises in a rugged spire,
O'ertopping his bleak fellows, does appear
The mountain's utmost summit. Could we climb it,
Perchance we might descry some distant town,

To serve us as a beacon on our way.

Kilm. By my soul, now, you have hit on't! What an advantage it is to a head to be gifted with brains! I had pondered all day ere I had stumbled on such an expedient, which carries with it only one small objection. Viro. What is't, Kilmallock?

Kilm. 'Tis so steep and perpendicular, that old Satan himself could never get up.

Viro. Tut, man! I warrant-we'll assist each other. Kilm. Faith, and that's true again; but I defy any human creature living to master it alone, but a cat or a monkey.

Viro. Sure, naught can harm her here. Sweet, lest

awhile:

Straight we will both return, and bring, I trust,

The clue to wind thee, ere the sun has set,

From this same briary labyrinth.

Come, honest comrade, and I swear to thee,
On a rough soldier's word, I know not how
E'er to requite thy friendship.

Kilm. Pish, Count! What, for scrambling up a rock! When I was a greenhorn, I would have gone as far after a bird's nest. Oh, St. Iago! may the man that falters to risk his neck for a friend and a female in a mountain, break it while he's a boy climbing for eggs in an orchard!

[Exeunt Virolet and Kilmallock, L. Zoray. I know not why it is, at this our parting, My blood should flow so chilly through my veins. ""Tis not fatigue, for I have slept-is't fear? "Sure no, for I do now most firmly trust "There is a power to throw its sacred shield "Before the zealous follower of its laws, "And ward off every danger." I will rest me Till they come back again; for there is something Strange and unwonted weighs upon my spirit,

Till my weary body totters. [Rests on a bank, R. S. E. Enter BULCAZIN Muley, r.

Bulca. Curses on them!

Fortune has poured her dregs of malice on me,
And packed these weak and halting knaves together,
To check my expedition. Every Moor

Measures his swarthy length upon the ground:
Beneath each bush there lies a fainting soldier.
That Ganem, too, should droop! "Oh, could I blow
"One spark of a wronged father's rage among them,
The lusty band would march the world about,
"As vigorously as the mountain deer

"Will bound away a league." Still I will forward.
Should I o'ertake the changeling, plodding now
Her way with this same Christian runagate,
Were every limb unstrung with lassitude,

I think the loathsome sight would nerve my arm
To strike her dead before me! [Seeing Zorayda.] Sɔft!

By Mahomet,

'Tis she! alone, too!-She seems weak and sinking. Oh, my poor child! my stubborn, wayward child! Shame on't! I shall forget my injuries!

Zorayda!

Zoray. [Rising.] Oh, heaven and earth! my father! Bulca. Ay, look on me. Thou canst not. Well, that's something:

There still is left some touch of shame within thee.

Tell me, thou viper!-What is't chokes me thus?
Oh! thou hast broke thy poor old father's heart!
My curses on thee !-Thy ingratitude,—
Thy infamy-What made thee fly me?
Zoray. Conscience,—

The holy zeal that led me from thy house

Burns high within me now: that frown, my father,
Would kill me else. 'Tis true, I am your child :
Stab me!-I'll kiss the hand that gives me death!
But I would languish ages out in torture,
Ere I would quit that heaven-directed path,
The strong resistless movements of my soul
Do bid me follow.

Bulca. "Why, 'tis bravely said

"Down, passion, down!-our parley shall be brief:"
One point, and I have done. Tell me, Zorayda-
I have it from thy lips-for circumstance

May hang a doubt upon't,—and tell me true,
Is there a-Psha! I cannot utter it?
Hast thou a companion in thy flight?
Zoray. My father,

I should disgrace the faith I follow now
To utter falsehood to thee. "There is one
"Whose form and gallant bearing, I confess,
"Captured my maiden fancy;" he has strayed
Across this mountain with me; yet I swear,
I had ne'er followed him,

Had he not proved himself well schooled in honour,
And a right Christian.

Bulca. Pestilence and torture!

Dost own it, wretch? Thou hast disgraced in thee
Thy father's blood; and justice, which has slept,
Now rouses, and will shed it!

[Draws his cimetar and offers to kill her.

Enter FLORANTHE, OCTAVIAN, and ROQUE, L.

Oct Ruffian, hold!

Advance thine arm the tithe part of a hair

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