repay’d ceases to be a debt. 10You have it in your power to serve me greatly.
Ferdinand. As how, my lord? I pray you name the thing!
I would climb up an ice-glaz’d precipice
To pluck a weed you fancied.
Osorio (with embarrassment and hesitation). Why — that — lady —
Ferdinand. ‘Tis now three years, my lord! since last I saw you. 15
Have you a son, my lord?
Osorio. O miserable! [Aside.
Ferdinand! you are a man, and know this world.
I told you what I wish’d — now for the truth!
She lov’d the man you kill’d!
Ferdinand (looking as suddenly alarmed). You jest, my lord?
Osorio. And till his death is proved, she will not wed me. 20
Ferdinand. You sport with me, my lord?
Osorio. Come, come, this foolery
Lives only in thy looks — thy heart disowns it.
Ferdinand. I can bear this, and anything more grievous
From you, my lord! — but how can I serve you here?
Osorio. Why, you can mouth set speeches solemnly, 25
Wear a quaint garment, make mysterious antics.
[Ferdinand. I am dull, my lord! I do not comprehend you.
Osorio. In blunt terms] you can play the sorcerer.
She has no faith in Holy Church, ‘tis true.
Her lover school’d her in some newer nonsense: 30
Yet still a tale of spirits works on her.
She is a lone enthusiast, sensitive,
Shivers, and cannot keep the tears in her eye.
Such ones do love the marvellous too well
Not to believe it. We will wind her up 35
With a strange music, that she knows not of,
With fumes of frankincense, and mummery —
Then leave, as one sure token of his death,
That portrait, which from off the dead man’s neck
I bade thee take, the trophy of thy conquest. 40
Ferdinand (with hesitation). Just now I should have cursed the
man who told me
You could ask aught, my lord! and I refuse.
But this I cannot do.
Osorio. Where lies your scruple?
Ferdinand. That shark Francesco.
Osorio. O! an o’ersiz’d gudgeon!
I baited, sir, my hook with a painted mitre, 45
And now I play with him at the end of the line.
Well — and what next?
Ferdinand (stammering). Next, next — my lord!
You know you told me that the lady loved you,
Had loved you with incautious tenderness.
That if the young man, her betrothéd husband, 50
Return’d, yourself, and she, and an unborn babe,
Must perish. Now, my lord! to be a man!
Osorio (aloud, though to express his contempt he speaks in the
third person). This fellow is a man! he kill’d for hire
One whom he knew not — yet has tender scruples.
[Then turning to FERDINAND.
Thy hums and ha’s, thy whine and stammering. 55
Pish — fool! thou blunder’st through the devil’s book,
Spelling thy villany!
Ferdinand. My lord — my lord!
I can bear much, yes, very much from you.
But there’s a point where sufferance is meanness!
I am no villain, never kill’d for hire. 60
My gratitude ——
Osorio. O! aye, your gratitude!
‘Twas a well-sounding word — what have you done with it?
Ferdinand. Who proffers his past favours for my virtue
Tries to o’erreach me, is a very sharper,
And should not speak of gratitude, my lord! 65
I knew not ‘twas your brother!
Osorio (evidently alarmed). And who told you?
Ferdinand. He himself told me.
Osorio. Ha! you talk’d with him?
And those, the two Morescoes, that went with you?
Ferdinand. Both fell in a night-brawl at Malaga.
Osorio (in a low voice). My brother!
Ferdinand. Yes, my lord! I could not
tell you: 70
I thrust away the thought, it drove me wild.
But listen to me now. I pray you, listen!
Osorio. Villain! no more! I’ll hear no more of it.
Ferdinand. My lord! it much imports your future safety
That you should hear it.
Osorio (turning off from Ferdinand). Am I not a man? 75
‘Tis as it should be! Tut — the deed itself
Was idle — and these after-pangs still idler!
Ferdinand. We met him in the very place you mention’d,
Hard by a grove of firs.
Osorio. Enough! enough!
Ferdinand.
