style="font-size:15px;"> When anxiouslyI hasten ‘d back, your grieving messenger,
I found the stairs all dark, the lamps extinct,
And not a foot or whisper to be heard.
I thought her dead, and on the lowest step
Sat listening; when presently came by
Two muffled up, one sighing heavily,
The other cursing low, whose voice I knew
For the Duke Conrad’s. Close I follow’d them
Thro’ the dark ways they chose to the open air;
And, as I follow’d, heard my lady speak.
Ludolph.
Thy life answers the truth!
Page.
The chamber’s empty!
Ludolph.
As I will be of mercy! So, at last,
This nail is in my temples!
Gersa.
Be calm in this.
Ludolph. I am.
Gersa.
And Albert too has disappeared;
Ere I met you, I sought him everywhere ;
You would not hearken.
Ludolph.
Which way went they, boy?
Gersa.
I’ll hunt with you.
Ludolph.
No, no, no. My senses are
Still whole. I have surviv’d. My arm is strong
My appetite sharp for revenge! I’ll no sharer
In my feast; my injury is all my own,
And so is my revenge, my lawful chattels!
Terrier, ferret them out! Burn burn the witch!
Trace me their footsteps! Away!
[Exeunt.
Act V
Scene I
A part of the Forest.
Enter CONRAD and AURANTHE.
Auranthe.
Go no further; not a step more; thou art
A master-plague in the midst of miseries.
Go I fear thee. I tremble every limb,
Who never shook before. There’s moody death
In thy resolved looks Yes, I could kneel
To pray thee far away. Conrad, go, go
There! yonder underneath the boughs I see
Our horses!
Conrad.
Aye, and the man.
Auranthe.
Yes, he is there.
Go, go, no blood, no blood; go, gentle Conrad!
Conrad.
Farewell!
Auranthe.
Farewell, for this Heaven pardon you.
[Exit AURANTHE,
Conrad. If he survive one hour, then may I die
In unimagined tortures or breathe through
A long life in the foulest sink of the world!
He dies ’tis well she do not advertise
The caitiff of the cold steel at his back.
[Exit CONRAD.
Enter LUDOLPH and PAGE.
Ludolph.
Miss’d the way, boy, say not that on your peril!
Page.
Indeed, indeed I cannot trace them further.
Ludolph.
Must I stop here? Here solitary die?
Stifled beneath the thick oppressive shade
Of these dull boughs, this oven of dark thickets,
Silent, without revenge? pshaw! bitter end,
A bitter death, a suffocating death,
A gnawing silent deadly, quiet death!
Escaped? fled? vanish’d? melted into air?
She’s gone! I cannot clutch her! no revenge!
A muffled death, ensnar’d in horrid silence!
Suck’d to my grave amid a dreamy calm!
O, where is that illustrious noise of war,
To smother up this sound of labouring breath,
This rustle of the trees!
[AURANTHE shrieks at a distance.
Page.
My Lord, a noise!
This way hark!
Ludolph.
Yes, yes! A hope! A music!
A glorious clamour! How I live again! [Exeunt.
Scene II
Another
