A lulling ceaseless dirge! 'Tis well with HIM! [Strides off in agitation towards the altar, but returns as VALDEZ is speaking.] Ter. (recoiling with the expression appropriate to the passion.)

The rock! the fir-grove! (To Valdez)

Hush! I will ask him!

Vald.

Did'st thou hear him say it?

Urge him not-not now!

This we beheld. Nor He nor I know more,

Than what the magic imagery reveal'd.

The assassin, who prest foremost of the three o Ord. A tender-hearted, scrupulous, grateful villain,

Whom I will strangle!

Vald. (looking with anxious disquiet át his Son, yet attempting to proceed with his description.)

While his two companions-Ord. Dead! dead already! what care we for the dead?

Vald. (To TERESA.)

Pity him! soothe him! disenchant his spirit!
These supernatural shews, this strange disclosure,
And his too fond affection, which still broods
O'er Alvar's Fate, and still burns to avenge
These, struggling with his hopeless love for you,
Distemper him, and give reality

To the creatures of his fancy.

Ord.

Is it so ?

it

Yes! yes! even like a child, that too abruptly
Rous'd by a glare of light from deepest sleep
Starts up bewilder'd, and talks idly.

(Then mysteriously.)

Father!

What if the Moors that made

my

brother's grave,

Even now were digging ours'? What if the bolt,

Though aim'd, I doubt not, at the son of Valdez,
Yet miss'd its true aim when it fell on Alvar?
Vald. Alvar ne'er fought against the Moors,-
say rather,

He was their advocate; but you had march'd
With fire and desolation through their villages.
Yet he by chance was captur'd.

Ord. Unknown, perhaps, Captur'd, yet as the son of Valdez, murder'd. Leave all to me. Nay, whither, gentle Lady? Vald. What seek you now?

Ter.

To guide me

A better, surer light,

Both Val. & Ord. Whither?

Ter. To the only place Where life yet dwells for me, and ease of heart. These walls seem threat'ning to fall in upon me! Detain me not! a dim power drives me hence, And that will be my guide.

Vald.

To find a lover! Suits that a high born maiden's modesty? O folly and shame! Tempt not my rage, Teresa! Ter. Hopeless, I fear no human being's rage. And am I hastening to the arms- -O Heaven!

I haste but to the grave of my beloved!

[Exit, VALDEZ following after her. Ord. This, then, is my reward! and must I love her?

Scorn'd! shudder'd at! yet love her still? yes! yes! By the deep feelings of Revenge and Hate

I will still love her-woo her-win her too! (a pause.) Isidore safe and silent, and the portrait Found on the wizzard-he, belike, self-poison'd To escape the crueller flames-My soul shouts triumph!

The mine is undermin'd! Blood! Blood! Blood!

They thirst for thy blood! thy blood, Ordonio! (a pause.)

The Hunt is up! and in the midnight wood
With lights to dazzle and with nets they seek
A timid prey and lo! the tyger's eye

Glares in the red flame of his hunter's torch!

To Isidore I will dispatch a message,
And lure him to the cavern! aye, that cavern!
He cannot fail to find it. Thither I'll lure him,
Whence he shall never, never more return!

(Looks through the side window.)

A rim of the sun lies yet upon the sea,

And now 'tis gone! All shall be done to night.

[Exit.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

A cavern, dark, except where a gleam of moonlight is seen on one side at the further end of it; supposed to be cast on it, from a crevice in a part of the cavern out of sight. Isidore alone, an extinguished torch in his hand.):

Isid. Faith 'twas a moving letter-very moving ! "His life in danger, no place safe but this. "Twas his turn now to talk of gratitude." And yet but no! there can't be such a villain. It can not be!

Thanks to that little crevice, Which lets the moonlight in! I'll go and sit by it. To peep at a tree, or see a he goat's beard, Or hear a cow or two breath loud in their sleep-Any thing but this crash of water drops! These dull abortive sounds, that fret the silence With puny thwartings and mock opposition! So beats the death-watch to a sick man's ear. [He goes out of sight, opposite to the patch of moonlight, return's after a minutes elapse, in an exstacy of fear].

A hellish pit! The very same I dreamt of!
I was just in-and those damn'd fingers of ice
Which clutch'd my hair up! Ha!-what's that-it
mov'd.

[Isidore stands staring at another recess in the cavern In the mean time, ORDONIO enters with a torch, and halloos to ISIDORE.]

Isid. I swear that I saw something moving there!

The moonshine came and went like a flash of light

ning

I swear, I saw it move.

Ord. (goes into the recess, then returns, and with great scorn.)

A jutting clay stone

Drops on the long lank weed, that grows beneath :

And the weed nods and drips.

Isid. (forcing a laugh faintly).

A jest to laugh at!

It was not that which scar'd me, good my lord.

Ord. What scar'd you, then?

Isid.

But first permit me!"

You see that little rift?

[Lights his torch at ORDONIO's, and while lighting it]

(A lighted torch in the hand,

Is no unpleasant object here one's breath

Floats round the flame, and makes as many colors,

As the thin clouds that travel near the moon.)

You see that crevice there?

My torch extinguished by these water drops,

And marking that the moonlight came from thence,
I stept in to it, meaning to sit there;

But scarcely had I measured twenty paces--
My body bending forward, yea o'erbalanced
Almost beyond recoil, on the dim brink

Of a buge chasm I stept. The shadowy moonshine
Filling the Void so counterfeited Substance,
That my foot hung aslant adown the edge.

Was it my own fear?

Fear too hath it's instincts! (And yet such dens as these are wildly told of, And there are Beings that live, yet not for the eye)

An arm of frost above and from behind me
Pluck'd up and snatcht me backward.

Heaven!

Merciful