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Unto this infidel!-Rise, rise, my mother!

This sight doth shame our house!

ABDULLAH.

Thou daring boy!

They that in arms have taught thy father's land

How chains are worn, shall school that haughty mien

Unto another language.

ELMINA.

Peace, my son!

Have pity on my heart!—Oh, pardon, Chief!
He is of noble blood!-Hear, hear me yet!

Are there no lives through which the shafts of Heaven
May reach your soul?—He that loves aught on earth,
Dares far too much, if he be merciless!

Is it for those, whose frail mortality

Must one day strive alone with God and death,
To shut their souls against th' appealing voice
Of nature, in her anguish ?-Warrior! Man!

To you too, aye, and haply with your hosts,
By thousands and ten thousands marshall'd round,

And your strong armour on, shall come that stroke

Which the lance wards not !-Where shall your high heart

Find refuge then, if in the day of might

Woe hath lain prostrate, bleeding at your feet,
And you have pitied not?

ABDULLAH.

These are vain words.

ELMINA.

Have you no children ?-fear you not to bring

The lightning on their heads?-In your own land
Doth no fond mother, from the tents, beneath
Your native palms, look o'er the deserts out,

To greet your homeward step?--You have not yet
Forgot so utterly her patient love—

-For is not woman's, in all climes, the same?—

That you should scorn my prayer!-Oh Heaven! his eye Doth wear no mercy!

ABDULLAH.

Then it mocks you not.

I have swept o'er the mountains of your land,

Leaving my traces, as the visitings

Of storms, upon them!-Shall I now be stay'd!
Know, unto me it were as light a thing,

In this, my course, to quench your children's lives,
As, journeying through a forest, to break off
The young wild branches that obstruct the way
With their green sprays and leaves.

ELMINA.

Are there such hearts

Amongst thy works, oh God?

ABDULLAH.

Kneel not to me.

Kneel to your lord! on his resolves doth hang
His children's doom. He may be lightly won
By a few bursts of passionate tears and words.
ELMINA (rising indignantly).

Speak not of noble men!-he bears a soul
Stronger than love or death.

ALPHONSO (with exultation).

He could not fail!

I knew 'twas thus !

ELMINA.

There is no mercy, none,

On this cold earth!-To strive with such a world, Hearts should be void of love!-We will go hence, My children! we are summon'd. Lay your heads, In their young radiant beauty, once again

To rest upon this bosom. He that dwells

Beyond the clouds which press us darkly round,
Will yet have pity, and before his face

We three will stand together! Moslem! now

Let the stroke fall at once!

ABDULLAH.

"Tis thine own will.

These might e'en yet be spared.

ELMINA.

Thou wilt not spare!

And he beneath whose eye their childhood grew,
And in whose paths they sported, and whose ear
From their first lisping accents caught the sound
Of that word-Father-once a name of love-
Is-Men shall call him stedfast.

ABDULLAH.

Hath the blast

Of sudden trumpets ne'er at dead of night,

When the land's watchers fear'd no hostile step,
Startled the slumberers from their dreamy world,
In cities, whose heroic lords have been

Stedfast as thine?

ELMINA.

There's meaning in thine eye,

More than thy words.

ABDULLAH (pointing to the city).

Look to yon towers and walls!

Think you no hearts within their limits pine,
Weary of hopeless warfare, and prepared

To burst the feeble links which bind them still
Unto endurance?

ELMINA.

Thou hast said too well.

But what of this?

ABDULLAH.

Then there are those, to whom

The Prophet's armies not as foes would pass
Yon gates, but as deliverers. Might they not
In some still hour, when weariness takes rest,
Be won to welcome us.-Your children's steps
May yet bound lightly through their father's halls!
ALPHONSO (indignantly).

Thou treacherous Moor!

ELMINA.

Let me not thus be tried

Beyond all strength, oh Heaven!

ABDULLAH.

Now, 'tis for thee,

Thou Christian mother! on thy sons to pass
The sentence-life or death!—the price is set
On their young blood, and rests within thy hands.

ALPHONSO.

Mother! thou tremblest!

ABDULLAH.

Hath thy heart resolved?

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