Piz. Guard!

Enter Guard.

Drag here the Spanish prisoner, Alonzo! Quick, bring the traitor here!

[Exit Guard.

Elv. What shall be his fate?

Piz. Death! death! in lingering torments! protracted to the last stretch that burning vengeance can devise, and fainting life sustain,

Elv. Shame on thee! Wilt thou have it said that the Peruvians found Pizarro could not conquer till Alonzo felt that he could murder?

Piz. Be it said—I care not. His fate is sealed.

Elv. Follow then thy will: but mark me, if basely thou dost shed the blood of this brave youth, Elvira’s lost to thee for ever.

Piz. Why this interest for a stranger? What is Alonzo’s fate to thee?

Elv. His fate, nothing! thy glory, everything! Thinkest thou I could love thee, stripped of fame, of honour, and a just renown? Know me better.

Piz. Thou shouldst have known me better. Thou shouldst have known, that, once provoked to hate, I am for ever fixed in vengeance.

Re-enter Guard, with Alonzo in chains.

Welcome, welcome, Don Alonzo de Molina! ’tis long since we have met: thy mended looks should speak a life of rural indolence. How is it that, amid the toils and cares of war, thou dost preserve the healthful bloom of careless ease? Tell me thy secret.

Alon. Thou wilt not profit by it. Whate’er the toils or cares of war, peace still is here.

[Putting his hand to his heart.

Piz. Sarcastic boy!

Elv. Thou art answered rightly. Why sport with the unfortunate?

Piz. And thou art wedded too, I hear; ay, and the father of a lovely boy—the heir, no doubt of all his father’s loyalty, of all his mother’s faith?

Alon. The heir, I trust, of all his father’s scorn of fraud, oppression, and hypocrisy—the heir, I hope, of all his mother’s virtue, gentleness, and truth—the heir, I am sure, to all Pizarro’s hate.

Piz. Really! Now do I feel for this poor orphan; for fatherless to-morrow’s sun shall see that child. Alonzo, thy hours are numbered.

Elv. Pizarro—no!

Piz. Hence—or dread my anger.

Elv. I will not hence; nor do I dread thy anger.