_Men._ The key, the key!—but hark! they call again At either door; we must unlock.
(_They unlock the side doors.—Enter through one BLANCA and BEATRICE, through the other URREA and VICENTE._)
_Urr._ Don Mendo, The King desires me from your mouth to learn His sentence on my son.
_Men._ From me! from me! to whom the King as yet Has not deliver’d it.— But what is this? Oh, God!
(_The centre door opens and DON LOPE is discovered, garrotted, with a paper in his hand, and lights at each side._)
_Urr._ A sight to turn Rancour into remorse.
_Men._ In his cold hand He holds a scroll, the sentence, it may be, The King referr’d you to. Read it, Urrea; I cannot. Oh, my son, the chastisement That I alone have merited has come Upon us both, and doubled the remorse That I must feel—and stifle!
_Urr._ (_reading_). “He that reviles and strikes whom he believes His father, let him die for ’t; and let those Who have disgraced a noble name, or join’d An ill imposture, see his doom; and show Three judgments summ’d up in a single blow.”
A SERGEANT, A NOTARY, SOLDIERS, LABOURERS, CONSTABLES, ROYAL SUITE, etc.
_Reb._ Confound, say I, these forced marches from place to place, without halt or bait; what say you, friends?
_Reb._ To be trailed over the country like a pack of gipsies, after a little scrap of flag upon a pole, eh?
_Reb._ And that infernal drum which has at last been good enough to stop a moment stunning us.
_2nd Sold._ Come, come, Rebolledo, don’t storm: we shall soon be at Zalamea.
_Reb._ And where will be the good of that if I’m dead before I get there? And if not, ’twill only be from bad to worse: for if we all reach the place alive, as sure as death up comes Mr. Mayor to persuade the Commissary we had better march on to the next town. At first Mr. Commissary replies very virtuously, ‘Impossible! the men are fagged to death.’ But after a little pocket persuasion, then it’s all ‘Gentlemen, I’m very sorry: but orders have come for us to march forward, and immediately’—and away we have to trot, foot weary, dust bedraggled, and starved as we are. Well, I swear if I do get alive to Zalamea to-day, I’ll not leave it on this side o’ sun-rise for love, lash, or money. It won’t be the first time in my life I’ve given ’em the slip.