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THE OPENING VISTA 
 
 and Other Poems 
 
 BY 
 
 leinore: croudac 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1907, By 
 
 Lenore Croudace in the office of the Librarian of Congress, 
 
 at Washington. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO: 
 The Pacific Goldsmith, Publishers 
 
 1508 Ellis Street 
 
5 ULIKARY of CONGRESS? 
 \ Twc Qopies Rcroeivad '' 
 
 \ JUN 2ii \mf i 
 
 ■ ^ Ccpyright £at!y 
 
 OOFY a. 
 
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 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 DEDICATION: The Spirit of Tragedy- . - - - 3 
 
 THE OPENING VISTA : A Tragedy- - - - 5 
 
 THE SPELL OF BRONZE: A Tragedy- . - - 44 
 
 THE KINGS GOAL: A Tragedy- - - - - 81 
 
 V - ^ 
 
TME 
 
 SPIRIT or TRAGEDY 
 
 Although the morning sky is azure clear, 
 Unruffled by a wind or wandering cloud, 
 
 There hovers in the calm a sense of fear, 
 
 As if to sudden death the morn were vowed. 
 
 The surface of the sapphire arching dome. 
 
 Seems puckered as if it longed to cry its pain. 
 
 In accents fainter than the breath of foam. 
 Yet strong enough to shake man's tallest fane. 
 
 What dread thing lurks behind the pearly gates, 
 Whose loftiness our peering gaze defies? 
 
 Does Beauty beckon while Hatred waits 
 And tottering heart of feeble man descries? 
 
 Onward it comes with soft, yet giant feet. 
 
 The Spirit of the mighty sons of woe, 
 And who of you will dare to hy, retreat. 
 
 When Tragedy swoops with pinions crouching low? 
 
 It is War that rages rampant o'er the world, 
 Unfurling battle flags in crimson dyed, 
 
 While shrinking men in cannon's mouths are hurled, 
 And cowards low their quivering figures hide. 
 
 And in its gorgeous train of filmy black. 
 The Spirit brings dark Ignorance abashed. 
 
 All ready to withstand the foe's attack. 
 
 Yet helpless, blind on broken mirrors dashed. 
 
 Now Love and Hate in deadly duel set. 
 
 With horrid malice tear each other's eyes, 
 
 'Until they seem in ugliness so met, 
 
 No difference in their face the heart espies. 
 
 A whisper on the silent, boding air, 
 
 Leers forth a cruel thought like poisoned breath. 
 And says these two but one sad image bear. 
 
 That Love and Hate confused, are one in death. 
 
 The Spirit walks abroad in potent thrill. 
 
 With garlands of jetty crepe to bind the land. 
 
 While joyous voices turn to accents shrill, 
 
 And here and there a corpse waves bony hand. 
 
 3 
 
But more than all the Spirit brings grim fear, 
 The fright that can abash the strongest heart. 
 
 When powers of the unseen dark are near, 
 And curtains of the night so strangely part. 
 
 What flame glows brilliant in that house far north? 
 
 Does fire allure to make us more insane? 
 It is just a ray from dazzling sun come forth, 
 
 To shine resplendent on a window pane. 
 
 In the very shimmer of the torrid day, 
 
 There seems a chance for things unknown to leap. 
 And slaugh er all along the flowery way, 
 
 With forces won from Heaven's unfathomed deep. 
 
 Cold Vengeance, Murder and ugly hidden crime, 
 
 Are toys the Spirit hangs upon its arm, 
 While with the stroke direct of the Grecian prime. 
 
 It hurls abroad the arrows of alarm. 
 
 Dim Doubt, downcast with palsy of the will. 
 
 Creeps through the morning's blaze of heavenly light. 
 
 While glides triumphant through the waters still, 
 The ship of gold fast sailing towards the night. 
 
 Pinched, cramping Hunger mocks where greed abounds, 
 
 Great seas of richest cream to him denied. 
 Who sits amid the dreary graveyard mounds. 
 
 The Spirit's slave, by cold starvation tried. 
 
 And oh the moan that rings in every ear. 
 
 For the things that never were and could not be. 
 
 The Spirit lives for you and me, my dear, 
 And all the joy we lost without a key! 
 
CHARACTERS. 
 
 Dresda Winrising, a young girl. 
 
 Jocelyn Stanhope, a middle-aged man, student in a theolog- 
 ical seminary. 
 
 Basil Lindsay, a roue.' 
 
 Ethel Coles, Dresda's friend. 
 
 Zenobia Rodnej , a middle-aged society widow. 
 
 Eldred Merivale, a young man in love with Dresda. 
 
 Frank Merivale, his brother, in love with Ethel. 
 
 SCENES. 
 
 ACT I. — A public square in North Berkeley, with a foun- 
 tain, benches and flower beds. 
 ACT II. — The Yosemite Valley in Spring. 
 ACT III. — The mountain of thorns in Berkeley canyon. 
 ACT IV. — The same as Act I. 
 Time: The present. 
 
 ACT I. SECENE I. 
 
 (A public square in North Berkeley, California. The hills 
 of the coast range m.ountains are seen in the background. It 
 is a late afternoon in the early Autumn, the whole scene 
 being bathed in vivid sunlight. Dresda Winrising, a young 
 girl, is discovered as the curtain goes up gazing with an 
 expression of rapt intensity at the hills.) 
 
 DRESDA. Just twenty-one today, my childhood gone, 
 My youth not yet commenced, I stand alone. 
 Behind me just the plain of student days. 
 Before, I know not what. My heart thumps loud 
 With questions, hopes and fears, with throbbing dreams. 
 As a child I yearned, the realm of fairyland 
 "o invade, my fancy dwelling ever there. 
 
 teachers robbed me o fthat conjured view 
 jf caves of gold, and mazy sprites with wings. 
 But still deep-down in some remote brain-cell, 
 I believed the day would come when I should see them, 
 And should perhaps have magic of my own. 
 And then by science led on distant trails, 
 I thought to find some strange revealing new, 
 Of powers of the earth ana air, of life 
 In lowly forms of bug and beast and bird. 
 That passed, I knew myself by far too small 
 To attain a chemist's mystic victory, 
 Or to ally myself with Nature's host. 
 Then slowly dawning on my opening youth, 
 There burst the vision of my life to be. 
 All thronged with men of great renown far-famed, 
 
 5 
 
With lovely women clustering by my side, 
 
 Of a knowledge kingdom I must win, and love 
 
 That would come whispering, fluttering to my side. 
 
 Beyond those hills, whose hay just cut and burnt, 
 
 Ts colored in the sun like gold smoke-dimmed, 
 
 A land of wonder waits and calls for me. 
 
 It pulls upon me with a tug so strong. 
 
 It seems ten thousand strands of iron combined. 
 
 Have tunnelled through the mountain's base to wrench 
 
 My inner heart from its safe resting-place. 
 
 Like a promised toy to a lonely, wistful child. 
 
 The hidden land I cannot see, is sweet. 
 
 So sweet, its poignant ecstasy strikes home. 
 
 And pierces to my very soul of souls. 
 
 Why there the silk pavilions flower-entwined, 
 
 Float in a breeze that breathing, soft perfumed. 
 
 Is like a lullably to tired ears. 
 
 The eye of every man and woman there, 
 
 Is sparkling with a light like captured flame, 
 
 That glows in myriad rays of precious stones. 
 
 There is a call within my brain to climb 
 
 Above the topmost crest of all. at once 
 
 To see what waits for me. I must begin. 
 
 (Enter Basil Lindsay.) 
 
 DRESDA. My dream has gone again. I must stop and talk, 
 To this man though he would never understand 
 My thoughts, he is so old, and wicked too. 
 Mr. Lindsay, good afternoon. 
 
 BASIL. Fair maid. 
 Good day. Why do you strain your pretty eyes 
 By looking at those hills? Bereft of green. 
 They are a chilling sight, like luckless men 
 When magic love deserts them, growing hard 
 And rocky, bald and bitter. Is it not so, 
 
 DRESDA. I do not see the h.lls alone but more 
 Than you would ever dream, the other side. 
 Have you been there? 
 
 BASIL. Beyond the hills, you mean? 
 
 DRESDA. Why, yes, don't laugh. 
 
 BASIL. I returned but yesterday. 
 
 DRESDA. Oh, tell me if I dreamed aright, if joy 
 
 Enthroned makes endless revel over there? 
 
 BASIL (shaking his head.) There is a valley, like many 
 others here; 
 
 The shadow from the mountain heavily falls. 
 And makes the country cold and damp; the trees 
 Grow small and stunted, while weeds are everywhere. 
 
 DRESDA. And the people are not gay? 
 
 BASIL. Oh, yes, they're gay, 
 
 6 
 
But not with joy divine like that you feel. 
 
 Their gayety to me is somber, sad. 
 
 Without the hue of morning's rosy blush. 
 
 Some day perhaps you'll see your.self, — you'll come 
 
 With me, together we can move in tune. 
 
 Or you will lend a lighter tread to me. 
 
 DRESDA. I think you need new glasses for your eyes, — 
 A jaundice seems to have settled on your view. 
 And even if I showed you Paradise, 
 I fear you'd curl your lip, grimace and spurn 
 The offering. 
 
 BASIfv. Perhaps not. Show me right now 
 Your Paradise, I will respond with glee. 
 
 DRESDA. Why I can have no Paradise to show, 
 I spoke in metaphor. I know but books. 
 The lessons given me to learn, no more. 
 
 BASIL. Just there, I find your Paradi.se, sweet maid. 
 The foolish books could teach you little^ truth, 
 And so, like an angel from another sphere. 
 You come to learn our sordid ways of earth. 
 You think it bright and brilliant as your robe 
 That glistens with gems from heaven's diadem. 
 Oh I let me run to catch that thought of yours. 
 And I will ask no other gift or boon. 
 
 DRESDA. You think that I am jus a silly girl. 
 Moon-struck, perchance, without a bit of sense. 
 And if I go with you beyond the hills, 
 Shall I be wise and learn what books conceal? 
 
 BASIL. I could not teach you wisdom, but I'll try 
 To guide you just a little way o'er earth. 
 And if you do not fear the ugly things, 
 There is many a novel sight to greet your eye; 
 The realm of vice without a veil you'll see, 
 Men you will find like demons on the path 
 Of gamboling lambs, unconscious of their doom. 
 It will be a fair exchange, your fragrant youth. 
 For my sad wisdom of the sinning world. 
 Now are you ready? 
 
 (Enter Jocelyn Stanhope. He is a man of forty-three, with 
 a strikingly beautiful face of the ascetic tvpe.) 
 
 .JOCELYX. What's that I hear you say? 
 Where would you lead the heart of this youg girl? 
 
 BASIL. It is no affair of yours, why should you ask? 
 
 JOCELYX. Miss Winrising is my friend, that's all. 
 
 BASIL. Your friend? And why not mine? Is she in leash? 
 Hold you the single cord that fetters her? 
 
 JOCELYX. Xo, no. I am but distant guard to her: 
 With sword unsheathed, just ready for a fray, 
 I stand upon the ramparts of the fort 
 That protects her innocence from foes like you. 
 
 7 
 
BASIL (angrily.) You mean you are a prying parson pert, 
 Who meddles everywhere with unwelcome zeal. 
 A man who at your age begins to find 
 No calling but the church, to my mind, has failed. 
 
 DRESDA. I cannot bear to hear you talk that way. 
 ¥v. Stanhope is so good and learned. 
 
 .JOCELYN (to Dresda.) Don't you take part in this dis- 
 cussion sharp. 
 
 I 1-now before the world I stand accused 
 Of lazy dreams; they say I seek a couch 
 Of ca'^e in the bosom of the Christian faith. 
 Believe me. Miss Winrising, it is not true. 
 I trod for years the weary way of law; 
 With silvering hair I plodded through the courts, 
 And wasted life in technical despair. 
 I felt condemned to live on pickles sour. 
 To see forever but the sordid side 
 Of men dist raught by petty cares and wants. 
 With heart that hungered for beaiitude, 
 A thrist for work untouched by vulgar price, 
 In search of an inspiration or desire 
 Just touched with hope as the western sea is rimmed. 
 With shimmering gold by the sun one moment poised 
 Ere it sinks beyond the verge, I came here to study. 
 
 DRESDA. I think your thought the rarest I have heard. 
 BASIL. And thus a parson always wins the hearts 
 Of women, while better men are left behind. 
 I leave you to his preaching for a while, 
 Miss Winrising, — I will return to you. 
 (Exit Basil.) 
 
 JOCELYN. Did you know the church was held in such 
 poor esteem? 
 
 DRESDA. I don't see why,— it is the noblest work. 
 JOCELYN. It is noble if the preacher makes it so. 
 A man must be much more than man you see, 
 To live upon the neight that God commands. 
 He must forswear all wishes of the heart. 
 Must die to selfish happiness or love. 
 So few can mount this steep ascent, so few 
 Give forth a radiance from the soul. 
 The others fail, and look absurd, you see. 
 
 DRESDA. How great it is to oe one who does not fail,— 
 To be one like you to spread a trvith divine! 
 
 JOCELYN. And are you sure that I am picked to win? 
 Why, as you speak, there creeps an eerie fear 
 Upon my still too human heart. I shiver 
 As if a ghostly hand had touched my head, 
 A ghostly voice were singing in my ear. 
 Recalling me to a youth I never felt, 
 Like a Circe tempting when tempation is worst, — 
 
 8 
 
But I weary you with such imaginings. 
 
 Let us speak of something else, your plans. — 
 
 DRESDA. Oh, yes. 
 I long and long and long to travel far, 
 Beyond the hills, to something new and bright. 
 Sometimes it seems for very longing's strain, 
 1 could lift my feet from their hold upon the ground, 
 And ligh: as a summer swallow eastward swing, 
 Flying through the air above all human kind. 
 If I could see the world like that, it would 
 Betray a wonder more wonderful sublime 
 Than any yet beheld by tourist keen. 
 
 JOCELYN (tenderly.) And if you could in this sweet way 
 defy 
 The laws of Nature, would you remember me? 
 
 DRESDA (recoiling slightly.) Why, yes, I would remember 
 all my friends. 
 
 But then I thought you said you could not care, 
 For any friendship of the human kind? 
 
 JOCELYN (sighing.) And would it be a theft from Al- 
 mighty God 
 
 To follow you in flight aerial far? 
 Or would not my purpose gain a greater height 
 In the silvery white perspective of your eyes, 
 So new to life, and all its dim inwindings, 
 They hang their own rich gauze of royal blue 
 L^pon the darkest and most barren sight? 
 
 DRESDA. Both you and Mr. Lindsay make me vain, 
 It really feels a little strange, you know. 
 To hear you talk to me as if I were. 
 Well — as if I were — • 
 
 (Enter Zenobia Rodney. She is a handsome middle-aged 
 widow of the brunette type.) 
 
 ZENOBIA. The same age as he. 
 
 (Dresda and Jocelyn start and turn to greet Zenobia.) 
 
 ZENOBIA (to Jocelyn.) You seem to find great pleasure in 
 the child. 
 
 It is true she is a clever little girl. 
 But one of your pretensions and great aims 
 Should find his level in a cultured field; 
 A widow perhaps like me could wield a lance 
 Against a man so daring and so bold 
 He tries to hold in outstretched greedy palm 
 The spheres of earth and heaven by him encompassed; 
 Who not content to shine in legal garb 
 Must add the cleric's saintly robes of white, 
 Who gives the virtues of his middle age, 
 To obliterate a youth in folly spent. 
 
 JOCELYN. You wrong me there, I had no foolish youth, 
 I strained and struggled through the toiling years 
 
 9 
 
Without reward. And now I seek a field "^ 
 
 Wherein to teach my deepest thought on life, 
 And all the pain and stress it brings the best 
 Of men in this puzzle-box of rocky earth, 
 I meet derision everywhere. 
 
 DRESDA. That's true! 
 Why every one delights to pounce on you! 
 Not one applauds your noble, glorious aim. 
 
 ZENOBIA. My dear, you are beyond your depth with him. 
 Leave me to probe that lofty dome of thought, 
 And dream of conquest o'er the human soul. 
 
 (Exit Dresda.) 
 And now she has gone we can talk with frank attack — 
 
 JOCELYN. Attack? You talk as if we were at war, 
 An Amazon in armor of cut steel, 
 Unprovoked you charge at my defenseless head, 
 And thrust your cruel rapier in my face. 
 
 ZENOBIA (laughing.) At war? Of course we are at war 
 and worse; 
 
 If you had trod as long as I the path 
 Of fashion, you would know that war with gun and sword. 
 Is an affair of mirth contrasted with the fight. 
 We daily make with wits and nerves and — hearts. 
 
 JOCELYN. I grant you that. I have seen it so in law. 
 But why make war on me? 
 
 ZENOBIA. You aim too high; 
 Would win the mighty influence a priest 
 Has held his own through history's stormy way; 
 Would wield the spiritual power against our fret 
 Of unbelief, and pining for a guide. 
 
 JOCELYN. And you would wish me on a lower grade! 
 
 ZENOBIA. I would wish you on a lower grade than that 
 You held some moments since, your head inclined 
 To Dresda's girlish fancy. I warn you now, 
 She is not for you. 
 
 JOCELYN. I protest! You misunderstand, — • 
 She was talking with a roue, — I interposed, — 
 
 ZENOBIA. Oh, yes, an excellent excuse, you mean. 
 Poor Basil Lindsay, — there is nothing there to fear, 
 
 His reputation and his blase air 
 Would keep her horrified from him afar, 
 While your appeal is subtle sweet to lure 
 A lovely girl to trust, — and ruin too. 
 
 JOCELYN (angrily.) Mrs. Rodney! 
 
 ZENOBIA. Your anger is well feigned. 
 Come walk a little while with me; we'll chat 
 Of law and war, — ' 
 
 JOCELYN. I disclaim your right to question 
 My motives or my life, but will not refuse 
 A little further chat with you. 
 
 10 
 
(Exit Jocelyn and Zenobia. Enter Ethel Coles and Frank 
 Merivale.) 
 
 ETHEL. Look there! 
 The widow ha--, the parson in her snare! 
 
 FRANK. She is a stunning type, of foreign birth 
 And education I should think. Do you know? 
 
 ETHEI . She will not look my humble way at all; 
 In fact, she is so haughty and so grand, 
 T wonder that she makes this town her home. 
 She comes from some great city of the world, 
 Looks like a Russian duchess in disguise, 
 A woman steeped in diplomatic lore. 
 Who has lived at courts with princes for her fools. 
 
 FRANK. That sounds immense, — I'll keep from out her 
 path, 
 
 I have no taste for women of her age. 
 Give me a pretty girl like you, — content 
 I would take to cottage life in a country town. 
 Oh, won't you give your promise now? It's hard 
 To think so long of one dear girl and yet 
 To be uncertain, held in long suspense. 
 
 ETHEL (coquetting and dimpling.) Well, you know I love 
 you best of all, — 
 
 And some day of course I will be your wife, but wait 
 A little, let me have some girlish fun. 
 
 FRANK. But if you loved me that would be enough. 
 I think you try to mimic Miss Winrising. 
 
 ETHEL. I don't! For she is cold as northern snows, 
 With no eye for any man. She does not flirt 
 And does not even know your brother's love. 
 
 FRANK. Alas! poor Bldred is quite mad for her, 
 Calls out her name at night in tortured sleep. 
 And writes her silly verses through the day. 
 
 ETHEL, 'laughing.) And has he the cottage plan as well 
 as you? 
 
 FRANK. Why not? You think she is maybe too rare? 
 My brother is a handsome man and good. 
 He has a chance to make a name. His friends 
 May help him in his architectural course, — 
 
 ETHEL. Oh, we know all that, but Dresda is so high, 
 She is a fay, elusive and so strange. 
 And then she has so many guardians! 
 
 FRANK. So many guardians? 
 
 ETHEL. I tell too much. 
 Remember I am not yet your wife, — not yet, — 
 I think I'll keep my secrets to myself. 
 
 FRANK. So coy! I'll snatch a kiss while we're alone. 
 
 (Bends over her and kisses her.) 
 So there we are engaged for good and all. 
 
 ETHEL. Nonsense! What is a kiss? 
 
 II 
 
(Enter Eldred.) 
 
 ELDRED. Do I intrude? 
 
 FRANK. Not now, the thing is done, — my wife to be, — 
 
 ETHEL. I'll be his wife unless, unless, unless, — 
 
 FRANK. She's all pretense, I know she likes a kiss. 
 
 ELDRED. Unless? 
 
 ETHEL. Unless I do not change my mind. 
 
 ELDRED. I thought that Miss Winrising would be here. 
 
 FRANK. You tell your passion to the screaming world. 
 
 ELDRED. Don't you? 
 
 FRANK. Oh, yes, but Dresda is an image. 
 That is carved in purest, palest ivory, — 
 A thing to place within a holy church. 
 With softened lights and incense but no wind. 
 
 ETHEL. Why how you change! Just now you were sur- 
 prised. 
 To hear me say such flowery things of her! 
 
 FRANK. I took your view. 
 
 ETHEL. My view? I did not say 
 That she was like a vestal light while I 
 Was fit for an open square and kisses here 
 And there! 
 
 FRANK. It seems I cannot please you dear, 
 In spite of all my clumsy, earnest striving. 
 
 ELDRED. Oh, here she is! 
 (Enter Dresda breathless.) 
 
 DRESDA. Just guess where I have been? 
 
 ELDRED. Upon the hills? 
 
 DRESDA. Why yes, almost to the very top and back; 
 Mr. Lindsay went with me; we climbed so fast. 
 Then down we raced like horses on a track. 
 I WON! Quite tired out, he ran for home. 
 But I could race again. It seemed as if 
 Electric currents ran full-charged through all 
 My veins, as if the ground beneath my feet 
 Dissolved, and melted to a liquid fire, 
 Through which I had to run to save my life. 
 ELDRED (in a tone of anguish.) Oh God! 
 DRESDA. You seem alarmed. Why snould you be? 
 ELDRED (sulkilv.) Mr. Lindsay is no friend for you, he's 
 bad! 
 
 DRESDA. I know; I have heard he is a shocking man, 
 But then he is very nice to me, I may 
 Perhaps do him some good. I liked the race, 
 If only we had reached the top and seen 
 The land beyond! 
 
 ELDRED. Won't you come with me? 
 (Ethel and Frank withdraw to one side.) 
 DRESDA (hesitating.) Why, you are very kind, but then 
 you see 
 
 12 
 
I should not go alone with you, — they'd think, — 
 
 ELDRED. They'd think! And yet you went with Basil 
 Lindsay! 
 
 DRESDA. He is so old. 
 
 ELDRED (mollified.) That's true, and I am young. 
 You are a little shy of me, oh Dresda, 
 Perhaps I speak too soon, but I choke with love. 
 My heart bounds and leaps like a horse untame:!. 
 And will have its way. Now don t you love me just 
 A little bit? 
 
 DRESDA (horrified.) Love you? Oh, not at all. 
 I never talk with you, but with Mister Stanhope 
 Or Ethel or— 
 
 ELDRED. But love is not made of talk. 
 Nor of clergymen and babbling girls. 
 It is something in the heart compelling you 
 Beyond all power to resist or chain. 
 
 DRESDA. I am not compelled but by that force 
 That yearns to know and know and evermore 
 To know. I want to travel far and wide, — 
 I like to talk with learned men and wise. 
 
 ELDRED. But you would not marry one? 
 
 DRESDA. Oh no, not yet! 
 
 ELDRED. Not yet! and danger lurks 
 On every side. You do not seem to know 
 That some one man must claim you soon. 
 
 DRESDA. Why one? 
 When four or five would be a nicer choice? 
 
 ELDRED (desperately.) My fate is then to love a girl of 
 moods, 
 
 To hang my heart in ribbons on her lyre 
 Of many strings where he who comes may play 
 What tune he will. It is as if I loved 
 The fickle breeze that turns the waves now east 
 Now west, indifferent to their broken crests. 
 And careless of the blows they strike, avenging, 
 Upon the sunken sand and pebbles tossed 
 Without control. 
 
 DRESDA. You are so tragic mat 
 It makes me laugh. Oh Ethel, — come here, — just think, — 
 
 (Ethel and Frank rejoin Dresda and Eldred.) 
 He says I am a flirt and that I have 
 A cruel heart and like too many men. 
 
 ETHEL. I just claimed you were too cold to flirt. 
 
 FRANK. Oh, Miss Winrising, have a heart for me! 
 For every pang that Eldred feels from you, 
 I must suffer one from Ethel's hands. 
 Desist I pray you or two brothers you 
 Will see, stretched out in livid, ghastly death. 
 The victims of a maiden's vain caprice. 
 
 13 
 
ETHEL. Oh, Dresda, what a weight he puts on you! 
 I'll crawl beneath your wings,— you take the blame 
 For the strenuous wrath of the Brothers Merivale. 
 
 DRESDA (drawing herself up haughtily.) I will take no 
 blame or weight from any one, — 
 Why am I not free to take the course I choose? 
 And must I love the one who gives me love? 
 I never asked one jot of such a gift. 
 Nor ever wished it in my inmost heart. 
 Plow dare he say that I must love him now, 
 Or ever? The years stretch out before my gaze, 
 I ike vast fields cf prairie land as yet unsown. 
 It seems that every step I am to take 
 Will bring new verdure into bloom, will build 
 New towns and on their progress start a race 
 Of beings high and fair with some fond hope 
 As yet unborn. Why should he check me ere 
 I sfart? 
 
 E' DRED. You rave like a witch with streaming hair. 
 Instead of a human girl of flesh and blood. 
 Some day you will wake and find me standing here. 
 To claim you for my wife. Such love as mine, 
 Fears not an unsown prairie land or dreams 
 Of riory glowing in a youthful mind. 
 Run riot in fantastic vapors wild. 
 Dresda girl, I love vou. — remember that. 
 
 (Exit Eldred.) 
 
 ETFEL. That speech was almost like a threat, I thought. 
 
 FRANK. Poor bov, I think he has love's fever worse 
 Than I. 
 
 ETHET; (penishly.) You mean your love for me is cool. 
 
 FR/\NK. Miss Winrising, what shall I do with her? 
 
 DRESDA. In vain 
 You appeal to me. I cannot read her heart. 
 When the strange ways of my own are unknown to me. 
 
 FRANK. Don't you think a promise should be kept? 
 
 DRESDA (dreamily.) Why yes, if given in good faith. 
 
 ETHEL. Come Frank. 
 She does not care to listen to your woes. 
 
 FRANK (eagerly.) Oh, Ethel, will you climb the hill with 
 me? 
 
 ETHEL. Dresda said it was a pleasant walk. 
 
 (Exi^, Frank and Ethel.) 
 
 DRESDA (alone.) How strange it is so hard to go alone! 
 Why must they always try to hinder me. 
 And hang about my skirts with questions hard? 
 
 (Rp-enter Jocelyn Stanhope.) 
 
 JOCELYN. You look puzzled, little girl, tell me the prob- 
 lem. 
 
 DRESDA. Why then I should feel that I were just like 
 them ? 
 
 14 
 
JOCELYN. Like them? 
 
 DRESDA. Oh, like the girls and boys I know. 
 Who want me to decide their quarrels yet 
 Are angry if I do not follow them, 
 
 JOCELYN (smiling. J It is too soon for you to find that life 
 Is not an easy game. Why every day 
 I see the tangle more deeply knotted, tied 
 With finer threads of cord that will not break. 
 The hairs of white that silver o'er my head, 
 Stand one by one for some new view of pain. 
 Why since I saw you half an hour ago 
 Another lesson burnt into my soul. 
 
 DRESDA. You learnt sad things from Mrs. Rodney, then? 
 
 JOCELYN. Well, yes — and — no — but we will not speak of 
 that. 
 
 You are too young to learn those things yourself. 
 You should remain untrammelled yet awhile. 
 In the vast sheer atmosphere of your own dreams. 
 I would that I had started towards the church 
 When young like you the vista opened out 
 Before my untried gaze, no cloud or doubt 
 There dimming the prospect of a love divine. 
 And now it seems devotion has no worth; 
 On every side there is a tug and strain, 
 An effort like a siege in war to tear 
 Me wounded from my high design and hurl 
 My piety to wolves that feed on human flesh. 
 
 DRESDA (tenderly.) There is one who does not feel like 
 that, you know. 
 
 It is so easy to be cheap and small, 
 And very hard to be great and good like you. 
 Why, as you speak, I seem to hear sweet chimes 
 Of some lovely music long-lost to common earth; 
 And in the pulpit I know that you will draw 
 Many thousands to believe the thoughts 
 You preach. 
 
 JOCELYN. My little girl, your words are sweet, — 
 I think too sweet for a tired man like me. 
 
 (He bends over her looking into her eyes tenderly. En- 
 ter Basil Lindsay.) 
 
 BASIL (sharply.) I am here quite ready for another race. 
 
 JOCELYN (to Dresda.) I beg your pardon; you wished 
 to speak to him? 
 
 DRESDA. Oh no, i did not expect to see him here. 
 
 BASIL (to Dresda.) I thought next time we'd take a horse- 
 back ride. 
 
 (To Jocelyn.) Miss Dresda and I are chums in the field of 
 sport. 
 
 JOCELYN. You claimed before I interfered, — I'll go. 
 
 (Excit Jocelyn.) 
 
 15 
 
BASIL. That was a royal race we had to-day. 
 
 DRESDA. Oh yes, but I do not want to race again. 
 Please leave me now, — I want to be alone. 
 
 BASIL. And are you old enough to have a mood? 
 I will go and return when the wind is again my way. 
 
 (Exit Basil. The sky darkens, a lurid sunset of dark 
 purple, indigo and flame tints comes on.) 
 
 DRESDA (alone.) I begin to lose my wish to cross the 
 hills, 
 
 How dark they look, omens and ghosts of night 
 Seen hidden in their broad and round expanse! 
 I who had no fear an hour since, 
 Am almost trembling with an unknown fright. 
 Something strange, undefined, bold, yet masked. 
 Is spreading brooding wings above my head. 
 And all my buoyant hope of lovely things 
 But turns into a quivering dread of men. 
 Why love, ecstatic love which poets sing 
 Must come into the heart like a perfect song, 
 Finding its sure and noiseless way untaught, 
 Without alarm or compulsion's ugly force. 
 And could they make me love at their will.' 
 Oh no, oh no, it will not be, — it can't, — 
 And yet the stare of those angry eyes burns through 
 My thoughts. They look the same, Eldred fierce. 
 With all a boy's unreason and contempt, 
 Mr. Lindsay with I know not what 
 Of evil, vile design, and Mr. Stanhope, 
 Who longs to have a friend. They crowd upon me. 
 As if they aimed to steal my very will, 
 As if they would rob me of my joy of life 
 And put their clamps of iron on my wrists. 
 Oh, is it true I am compelled to love. 
 If not one, why then another? Oh no, I won't! 
 Oh Knowledge, great and good and strong and true, 
 You be my friend for now and all, and teach 
 My heart to love but you until the day 
 The prince of light breaks through my castle door, 
 And takes me far away to a home of bliss. 
 
 (It grows darker and there is a sound of the soughing of 
 the wind in the trees.- (Dreasda gives a faint scream and 
 peers about her as if some one were lurking in the 
 
 shadows.; 
 
 DRESDA. I thought I heard some steps behind my back, 
 An unseen legion seemed to stamp their feet, 
 And march upon me. There is no one here. 
 No one but the spectre of my fear, — 
 My friends would laugh to see me so afraid, 
 I crouch into myself with craven dread. 
 Because, oh vanished phantom of my dream 
 
 16 
 
Belaiise — because — three men begin to love me! 
 CURTAIN. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 (Scene: the Yosemite Valley the next Spring. The ver- 
 anda of a sumptuously appointed summer hotel. Basil is dis- 
 covered languidly sipping an iced drink. Ener Zenobia.) 
 
 ZENOBIA. How nice to find a friend among the guests! 
 But still I wonder that you linger here? 
 
 BASIL. You wonder when you hold yourself the key, 
 That gives to this hotel a special charm. 
 
 ZENOBIA. And is that flattery hurled a^ my poor head? 
 Alas! I am not so dull, I pierce your thought, — 
 You do not want to measure swords with me, 
 But would rest j^our sated life in morning glory. 
 Would gain a thrill from Dresda's budding beauty. 
 
 BASIL. You speak too loud! It is true I am not well, 
 Although I look so strong. My lungs are filled 
 With a cold whose end may be no less than death. 
 Would you grudge me one free breath of pure ozone? 
 No harm can come to her from me, you know 
 I hold her youth a poem sacred, dear, 
 And though not seeming so, would be a guard 
 Of better worth than others speaking fair, 
 And unsullied by a wild career like mine. 
 
 ZENOBIA. I will speak soft, come here, we'll mal:e a bond. 
 
 (She draws him apart to the front of the stage.) 
 You make love to my little ward a bit, 
 She pines in dreamy solitude too much, 
 And in return you'll save her from the clutch 
 Of men like Jocelyn Stanhope, — he is nere. 
 
 BASIL. The hypocrite! 
 
 ZENOBIA. Not that — he is far worse. 
 He is too sadly real — might tempt a girl 
 To love's insane abandonment. 
 
 BASIL. The cad! 
 You can trust me, do not fear I'll go too far, — 
 
 ZENOBIA (laughing.) Oh, I fear enough both you and him. 
 And others who spin about my pretty girl. 
 And try to weave a web of deceitful love. 
 
 BASIL. Why here she comes, — she must not see us thus, — 
 
 (Withdraws to a little distance. Enter Dr-esda.) 
 
 DRESDA (to Zenobia.) There is no place for miles around 
 we have 
 Not seen. There is nothing left for us to do. 
 
 ZENOBIA. You used to find the beauty of the clouds, 
 The music of the brooks and birds and winds. 
 The one great rapture that the world contained. 
 And now vou are not satisfied! 
 
 DRESDA. Why no! 
 
 17 
 
Would all the magic colors of this vale. 
 
 Or the grandeur of these walls of rock, 
 
 Be anything but empty void, if man 
 
 Did not bring his heart to understand, 
 
 Fis eye to measure height and depth and glow, 
 
 HiK soul to feel the wonder of God's work? 
 
 ZFNOBIA. It is always dull without a man, my dear. 
 
 DRESDA. 1 did not mean that— I meant— 
 
 ZENOBIA. You know not what. 
 Mr. Lindsay is here, quite ill — may die — ■ 
 You nJght speak a word or two to him. 
 
 DRESDA (hesitating.) I don't like 
 To have him for my only friend. 
 
 ZENOBIA. My child, 
 He is no worse than other men, in fact, 
 I prize his virtue rather highly myself. 
 
 DRESDA. Zenobia! 
 
 ZENOBIA. You take such shy alarm— 
 You must learn a little ease, a tact like mine. 
 
 (Exit Zenobia.) 
 
 DRESDA (alone, troubled.) She is my oldest friend, and 
 yet she seems 
 
 To sneer at me. The whole world is like a sneer, 
 A horrid joke on those who feel too much. 
 There is a demon in the azure sky. 
 And snakes are hiding in the velvet moss, — • 
 While my heart so sick and so confused, 
 Still tries in vain to see but loveliness. 
 I was so glad to leave those men last year. 
 And now I almost wish that they were here! 
 What do I want? If love, real love, should come, 
 The cloudland that I now despise, would turn, 
 To palaces of opal light, just fired, 
 With a burst of splendid, living, crimson flame. 
 But that real love is as far from me as the top 
 Of yonder monster pine whose branches wave 
 In sadness near the white horizon line. 
 But while I wait, — 
 
 (Basil comes from the rear of the stage and joins her.) 
 
 BASIL. Tell me that thought, Miss Dresda, 
 It is such waste to talk but to yourself. 
 
 DRESDA. Zenobia told me you were here, were ill. 
 I am so sorry, I hope you'll soon be well. 
 
 BASIL. I will be well if you but wish it so. 
 
 DRESDA. You speak as if I had some healing power. 
 
 BASIL. The one we love can always work a cure. 
 
 DRESDA. Zenobia would smile to hear you talk like that. 
 
 BASIL. But you are not Zenobia, nor will 
 You ever be like her in worldliness. 
 You should not start because I say I love you. 
 
 18 
 
I should despise myself if I did not feel 
 
 A softness of the heart before your shrine 
 
 Of youth and innocence. An atheist, 
 
 I bow my knee within a reverend place, — 
 
 A man who has seen the worst, I whisper love 
 
 To a maiden's purity. Should I do less, 
 
 I would sink to shame. 
 
 DREriDA. But when men say they love. 
 They make that love the price of many tears. 
 They insist and try to claim for their very own 
 A heart that has not yet been given them. 
 If they would but love and be content — 
 
 BASIL. To see 
 The one they love a statue to the breeze. 
 Serenely poised in changeless, silent stone, 
 As passive as a marble tomb that feels 
 No stress of anguish and never takes a mark 
 From sorrow's ardent kisses, never hears 
 The sighs mat drop by drop the heart's own blood 
 Absorb. 
 
 DRESDA. Om not quite that, but passive. — yes. 
 
 BASIL. I will be the kind of lover that 3'ou wish. 
 
 Adoring you, but making not one claim 
 Upon your cloistered heart. I will listen ever 
 While you talk. And since we met last fall 
 How have you passed your days? 
 
 (Enter Ethel.) 
 
 DRESDA. I read and read. 
 But the books grow more and more remo^^e. I find 
 No clue that binds them to the life about me. 
 
 BA.SIL. I said before I would teach vou life. 
 
 ETHEL. Me too! 
 I want to learn all sorts of things right now, 
 Before I marry. I would like to have 
 A scandal to brighten up the stupid days. 
 Then when I am settled in my little home. 
 There will be something spicy to remember. 
 
 DRESDa. WTiy what a strange idea! 
 
 BASIL. Oh, no, it's not. 
 Miss Coles, for any game you like, count me 
 A ready sport. I'll meet you where you say, 
 And teach you any wicked thing you choose. 
 
 DRESDA. I must go away. (Exit Dresda.) 
 
 BASIL. We can make our plans at once. 
 
 ETHEL. I wonder how you dare to be so bold! 
 
 BASIL. I but followed you Miss Coles. 
 
 ETHEL. You say I am bold! 
 Yet Dresda talks and flirts with you all day. 
 And no one says a word, while I must stay 
 Alone with Frank. For her a dozen men. 
 
For me just one, — it is not fair! 
 
 BASIL. Agreed! 
 V/e'll make young Merivale a jealous man, 
 Come have an ice with me. 
 
 (They withdraw to a small table in the rear of the stage. 
 Enter Jocelyn Stanhope.) 
 
 JOCELYN (nervously.) So many here! 
 I thought I'd find a chance to rest alone! 
 
 (He sits down by himself, glances nervously about from 
 time to time as if he were being watched. Exit Basil and 
 Ethel. Enter Dresda. Jocelyn gives a violent start as he 
 see her.) 
 
 JOCELYN. I did not hope to see you here, Miss Dresda. 
 
 DRESDA. Then it is a surprise for both of us. 
 
 JOCELYN. And yet it was your magnet drew me here, 
 For your haunting face is on my brain all day. 
 At night I seem to see it seraph-like 
 Amid the images of Bible lore. 
 I find in you what all my life I have lacked. 
 The companion of my soul. Your spirit walks 
 With me through every labyrinth of thought 
 That perplexes man in his search for the perfect God. 
 
 DRESDA. You talk in such a serious vein, I fear 
 To listen, and feel it is a kind of wrong 
 For me to be even your ethereal friend. 
 
 JOCELYN. And don't you think, dear child, that in my 
 prayer. 
 
 That question beats like the hammer on the forge? 
 And don't you think sometimes it seems a sin 
 For your fair face and sapphire eyes to thrust 
 Their presence twixt my religious work and me? 
 And then again it seems to me you are 
 The only good, the one untainted thing 
 My futile life has thus far sought in vain. 
 Like an ancient slave that o'er the galleys bent, 
 I have toiled in silent pain, not daring to lift 
 My eyes to a view of the hidden sky above. 
 Yet longing with a hope as strong as life 
 For just one glimpse of something high and true. 
 I cast my anchor in the church, and then. 
 With every nerve aquiver for the good, 
 I sought the heavenly kingdom on this earth, 
 
 DRESDA. You frighten me, your talk is so intense! 
 
 JOCELYN (putting his right hand on her shoulder and 
 peering into her eyes.) And then I met a woman with a 
 soul! 
 
 And all my yearning wayward, vague, unsure, 
 Became a fearful wish to claim you for my own, 
 To wed my years to your white heat of youth. 
 
 DRESDA. Yoii should not talk that way to me— oh don't! 
 
 20 
 
JOCEI.YN. I must! A life-time's thwarted purpose runs 
 Like streaming lava through my veins and craves 
 An exit. It boils within my heart and brain 
 As if it would blaze forth and light the world 
 With this new truth that has smoldered long in me. 
 
 DRESDA. Oh, what new truth is that? 
 
 JOCEI YN. A woman's soul 
 The lamp of light eternal. Dresda — come — 
 My bride. — my wife, — my soul tha^. lives in you, — • 
 Our marriage will defy all laws of sense, 
 We'll swim the ether in ecstasy sublime. 
 
 DRESDA. You make me dizzy with your violent love! 
 I cannot follow you in this strange flight. 
 You are too much for me — just twice my age, — 
 Oh, is it fair to try to bend me thus 
 To your design? It is as if you whirled me 
 In your arms right through a blinding monsoon storm, 
 Or, as if on winged horses swift, 
 We cut the air in midnight frenzied chase. 
 
 JOCELYN. And that was what you wished to do last year! 
 
 DRESDA. That was the foolish whim of an untaught girl. 
 Oh, please, oh, please, refrain, I cannot bear 
 To hear you put me in a sacred place. 
 You said a minister should be above 
 All thought of worldly love. 
 
 JOCELYN. My love for you 
 Is woven with my work, a part of me 
 As the stars are part of the purpling evening sky. 
 Without you I shall fail to high intent. 
 And with you every carnival of earth 
 Will doff its robes of flesh and greed and sloth 
 And don the shining whiteness of your soul. 
 
 DRESDA. I am not fit for such a destiny, 
 And then you should not fear to stand alone. 
 Do you mean to marry me only with your mind? 
 
 JOCELYN. With my mind and heart and all my deepest 
 self,— 
 
 Until we should no longer be as two, 
 But one strong power for the highest good. 
 
 DRESDA. Why then in wedding you, I should say fare- 
 well 
 
 To Dresda, to my own poor tiny self! 
 Oh, I'd rather be the little brook 
 That wanders lonely lost in forest depths. 
 Than a current of the ocean's mighty swirl! 
 
 JOCELYN. I have not taken my degree as yet, 
 Suppose I should abandon my career, 
 And live for you and you alone in love? 
 My Dresda, I love you with the unchanging love 
 Of a man not young who has never loved before. 
 
 21 
 
It is not the love of an impetuous, silly boy, 
 Nor the passion of a man of worldly taste. 
 You see I throw the mantle of my soul 
 About you. Just bend your eyes upon me once. 
 
 (He leans very close to her until she looks half hypnotised. 
 The^' swav slightly to each other as if they would embrace. 
 Enter Zenobia.) 
 
 ZENOBIA (in a haughty, angry voice.) It seems I cannot 
 trust my little girl 
 
 One hour alone without a scene like this. 
 I warned you Jocelyn Stanhope last time we met, 
 I would not have you making love to her. 
 Already you break your theological oath, 
 And show yourself a weakling of weakest mold, 
 A man who falls in prostrate passion low 
 Before a girl so young she might be his child. 
 
 JOCET YN. My love for Dresda can never be a fall. 
 For it is a part of all I hold most high. 
 You claim your right to train her for the world, 
 I'll claim my right to mould her for the church. 
 You, Mrs. Rodney, think I must be mild, 
 Mupt bear your insults or abjure my faith. 
 But if it were the last word that I should speak, 
 I'd say that my love for this sweet girl had brought 
 My longing soul but nearer to my God. 
 
 (Exit Jocelyn.) 
 
 DRESDA. He asked me to be his wife, Zenobia dear. 
 
 ZENOBIA. With what intent behind, do you suppose? 
 
 DRESDA. Behind? Why he could have no low intent! 
 He is too far from earth, that's all, his eyes 
 Are curtained by his fervor of the church. 
 Somehow he thinks that I can help his cause. 
 Can be a priestess walking by his side. 
 
 ZENOBIA. He wants your youth to feed his priestly fires, 
 Your heart to build for him a Christian fame. 
 And when to feed his vast self-love he has drained 
 Your life-blood to the very dregs, he'll go 
 And seek new fields of youth, forsaking you. 
 
 DRESDA. Zenobia! How can you say such bitter things? 
 You do not think he would betray my love? 
 
 ZENOBIA. Your love? Don t say that such a thought has 
 come 
 To you from all his sanctimonious cant? 
 
 DRESDA. Everything is so obscure and dim, 
 I fear his great mesmeric dominance. 
 
 ZENOBIA. Such fear it is that leads poor girls astray, — 
 
 DRESDA. Zenobia, my guide, how can you hurt me so? 
 How can you hint at anything so dire? 
 I ca^'t believe that Jocelyn would betray, — 
 
 ZENOBIA (sternly.) So soon, — the name! And where is 
 
 22 
 
Basil then? 
 
 I Lold you to turn your thought to him to-day. 
 
 DRESDA. Where shall I turn my thoughts? The one you 
 praise 
 
 Kas been of evil life, forswears his God, 
 The one whom you condemn is a striving saint. 
 Zencbia. my oldest, only friend who as 
 A mother stands to me, you would not LIE? 
 
 Z.EN0B1A (roughly.) Why not? If I thought it for your 
 rood? I . i- tin o 
 
 You learned to drop t„at wistful, childish air, 
 Believing all you hear like a simpleton. 
 
 DRESDA. Zenobia, just say you would not LIE! If you 
 Are false, then who in all the world is true? 
 You cannot mean to lead me wrong, just now 
 You spoke in scorn of Jocelyn, said that he 
 Might lead me to some harm by sweet deceit. 
 And now you take a slippery course yourself. 
 Oh where can I find the truth? I'll strangle and die, 
 If someone does not tear away the veil 
 Of black uncertainty. Zenobia, once more. 
 Tell me, which man is good and which is bad. 
 Ml". Lindsay hints at grimy, dreadful things. 
 And Jocelyn's mind shines clear and pure and true 
 As an archangel's jeweled crown of radiant light. 
 
 ZENOBIA. I told you to make friends with Basil Lindsay, 
 The religious man will crush and ruin your life 
 Before it has begun. (Exit Zenobia.) 
 
 DRESDA. That CAN'T be true! 
 Oh life is far too hard to live -like this! 
 Zenobia lies — and Basil too — they plot 
 And scheme — why should they wish to give me pain? 
 And Jocelyn is too strong, — half -mad he seems — 
 Is there no peace, but must a danger dark 
 Creep round my footsteps like a lurking dwarf 
 Who with the assassin's knife must cut the ground 
 Beneath my feet until I trip and fall? 
 
 (Enter Basil and Ethel.) 
 
 ETHEL. I am surprised to find you thus alone, 
 Where are your friends? 
 
 DRESDA. Zenobia left just now. 
 
 ETHEL. Frank and Eldred come this way tonight, — 
 You will not tell them of my escapade? 
 
 DRESDA. Your escapade? 
 
 BASIL. With me she means; we walked 
 Through the valley hand in hand, the ground 
 Is rough — too hard for one to walk alone. 
 
 ETHEL. You ran a race with him yourself last year. 
 
 DRESDA. You all are making cruel sport of me. 
 You make a joke of everything I do, 
 
 23 
 
And no one cares and no one does a thing 
 To help me to the truth! 
 
 (Enter Frank and Eldred.) 
 
 ELDRED. Dresda, Dresda! 
 Who has hurt you so? You say that no one cares 
 When I have given ceaseless thought to you. 
 
 DRESDA. It is nice to see you here, — you come to camp? 
 
 FRANK. I came to camp but it seems I come too late 
 To save my sweetheart from a silly scrape. 
 
 BASIL. My foolish youth, you take absurd alarm. 
 I would never think of coming in between 
 The bucolic kisses of a youth and maid 
 On their hymeneal road to rustic bliss. 
 
 ETHEL. He is making fun of us, why Frank, he thinks 
 We are provincial, country gawks who do 
 Not know the world! That's why I thought I'd try, — 
 
 FRANK. 'Tis better to be that than vile like him! 
 Miss Winrising, could not you have hindered this? 
 
 DRESDA. I have so many troubles of my own! 
 
 BASIL. I seem to stand in very bad esteem, 
 But then I talk to children, void of sense. 
 1 will seek Mrs. Rodney, a woman of 
 Commanding charm. (Exit Basil.) 
 
 ELDRED. I feared the brute had eyes 
 For you, my Dresda, dear. 
 
 DRESDA confused). He has been so nice, — 
 And is quite gentle, too; his manner has 
 All the finished gloss of ancient chivalry. 
 But still I would not dare to trust his word. 
 
 FRANK (aside to Ethel). We will go for a little walk to 
 give him a chance, 
 To talk to her. Poor boy, he is quite daft, 
 Has one idea like a maniac in a cell. 
 I told him to be sharp with her, to hold 
 Her wandering fancy in his virile grip. 
 And I warn you, I'll stand no nonsense, either. 
 
 ETHEL. You are just as simple as a pair of calves. 
 Don't scold, I'll go with you, let Eldred do 
 His worst. 
 
 (Exit Frank and Ethel.) 
 
 ELDRED. Now tell me what the trouble is, sweetheart? 
 
 DRESDA. I feel like a trembling deer, pursued and run 
 To earth by a cruel fox with hungry hounds. 
 I hide behind the trees and hedge and bite. 
 But feel that they will eat me up some day. 
 
 ELDRED. You morbid child! Does Lindsay give such 
 chase? 
 
 DRESDA. He is not the worst; his illness makes him weak. 
 But Joselyn Stanhope swears I must marry him. 
 And go on some religious work around 
 
 24 
 
The world. It is as if I were a model, 
 A frenzied artist needed all the time 
 To make his paintings true. He raves of love 
 And religion all combined till I seem to be 
 A martyr of the Christian faith condemned 
 With him to suffer in the Roman ring, 
 Where lions, baints and gladiators met 
 In ghastly butchery. 
 
 ELDRED. My promised wife 
 Would be sercure from the fiend that you describe. 
 I know him little, but it is not hard 
 To guess his nature, the fervor of the church 
 Mingling with an erotic, turgid love for you. 
 
 DRESDA. Oh Eldred! What shall I do? 
 
 ELDRED. Give me your word. 
 
 DRESDA. I can't! I do not love jou just that way. 
 
 ELDRED. But I love you and that is quite enough 
 For both of us. Suppose you just consent 
 To be engaged to keep him from your track? 
 
 DRESDA. Eldred, — you are so good — you would not 
 betmy? 
 
 ELDRED (proudly). I am poor and young, but I have not 
 learned to lie. 
 
 DRESDA. Eldred, you will not be as you were last year? 
 
 (Enter Jocelyn.) 
 
 ELDRED. Stanhope, good day, do come and wish us joy; 
 Dresda Winrising is my promised wife. 
 
 JOCELYN (laughing). What childish by-plav is this, mv 
 boy? 
 
 DRESDA. My boy! 
 He is twenty-four, why surely that's a man! 
 
 JOCELYN. And on what do you hope to support your 
 promised wife. 
 
 ELDRED. You know that I am a rising architect. 
 
 JOCELYN. Your employers are friends of mine, one word 
 from me 
 And your rising course would be a rapid fall. 
 
 ELDRED. I could seek some other field and slave for her. 
 
 JOCELYN. And have you won consent from Mrs. Rodney? 
 
 DRESDA. Zenobia no longer cares fcr ire. 
 
 JOCELYN. Dresda is not for a little whelp like you; 
 She soars so far above your humble head 
 You cannot even hear her wings' soft swish 
 As they cleave the air in flight far swung above 
 The common loves of common men who go 
 Afoot like you. 
 
 ELDRED. I could strike you in the face 
 For talk like that, — you scoundrel in a parson's garb! 
 
 JOCELYN. Quiet, my boy, step back, this girl is mine. 
 Her soul just waked to knowledge of divine 
 
 25 
 
Revealing, must take its destined course of glory, ' 
 
 Of love within the province of the soul. 
 
 Her opening mind to mine, united, knit, 
 
 Transparent as a perfect crystal, white, - , 
 
 And carved by me like a cameo so rare 
 
 The ancient ruins would be searched in vain 
 
 To find its equal, will work the miracle 
 
 Of the coming faith. 
 
 ELDRED. All that just means you want 
 To hold her in your arms; your middle age 
 Is yearning for a young and lovely girl. 
 But while I live I swear she shall not be yours. 
 She has chosen me, she's mine unto the end. 
 
 DRESDA. Eldred, 1 did not say unto the end! 
 I must tell the truth, you are not the perfect one. 
 HE has not come, — I wait, — 
 
 JOCET YN (mockingly). And now, young man? 
 
 ELDRED. I have no fear of you or war or death! 
 
 DRESDA. My heart has such a piercing ypain; it's dark — 
 
 (She staggers slightly, putting her hand to her heart. 
 Enter Zenobia, Basil, Frank, Ethel, and a crowd of curious 
 spectators.) i 
 
 ZENOBIA (with infinite contempt). The dark ages seem 
 to loom upon our way. 
 When men like savage beasts upon their prey. 
 Fight to kill a pure and sweet young girl! 
 
 CURTAIN. 
 
 ACT 3.— THE SAME SUMMER. 
 
 (Scene: . Botanical gardens and mountain of thorns in 
 North Berkeley. Plants and flowers are growing in tropical 
 luxuriance, special attention being given to curiosities in 
 plants of the prickly and poisonous variety. A portion of 
 the scene is under a glass conservatory and some of the 
 plants are under glass covers. It is a bright summer after- 
 noon, and the characters are from a large garden party recep- 
 tion being held at one of the mansions in the neighborhood. 
 Enter Frank, Eldred and Ethel.) 
 
 ETHEL. I felt as if I should suffocate down there, 
 With all those lofty people in fine array, 
 Mrs. Rodney and her suite cut such a dash! 
 
 FRANK. Yet night and day you cry because no one 
 Will open for you the doors of society! 
 
 ETHEL. It seems to me that they are closed today, 
 An invitation is not worth its price. 
 When one is overlooked by fashion's pride. 
 And made to feel as small as a serving-maid. 
 
 ELDRED. I wish that I had such a small complaint! 
 What is a haughty tea or two compared 
 
 26 
 
With life and death? 
 
 FRANK. But Dresda is here today. 
 
 ETHEL. She is looking like a frightened, fading ghost. 
 
 FRANK. And still she stays near Jocelyn Stanhope's fangs! 
 
 ELDRED. Her parents' estate is now in court. She must 
 remain the summer through. 
 
 FRANK. He will not yield? 
 
 Ei DRED. Not he. I think sometimes the incarnate fiend 
 Is hidden behind that classic brow of his. 
 He flooded her with letters full of love, 
 Then that forbidden, he took to writing verse, 
 So that never a journal meets her random eye 
 Without some message of his frantic dream. 
 To make her his wife and shape her virgin soul 
 To his new expounding of the word of God. 
 
 ETHEL. I should think her love for you would make her 
 smile. 
 At his vague pleadings. 
 
 ELDRED. You forget how weak I am 
 In worldly power, — a shrimp shell that is crushed 
 In the machine of his vast influence. 
 At every step I take I hear a jeer 
 At my presumption and my helpless youth. 
 What chance has there ever been for youth to vie 
 With the assurance and the weight of middle age, 
 Or worse, the authority of the very old? 
 We are like the fragile plants that try to grow 
 Within the radius of the giant oak, 
 Or beneath the eucalyptus' waving leaves. 
 We put forth a feeble birth, then wither out, 
 Absorbed by the great strong roots that fill the ground. 
 We can never say "I will" but in our hearts, 
 While always "I must" is ringing in our ears. 
 I must stand by and see my Dresda wilt. 
 While a man in power asphyxiates her youth, 
 With his demented passion without control. 
 It seems as if my very heart would burst, 
 
 ETHEL. I am so tired of trying to follow her. 
 No one cares for me; Frank fumes: I can't untie 
 The knot of her strange perplexity and doubt. 
 She seems so sad and yet she flirts and flirts 
 And has no end of pretty clothes and rings. 
 ELDRED. You have no special love for Mrs. Rodney? 
 
 ETHEL. Oh, no! She tramples on my defenseless head. 
 
 ELDRED. Then you and Frank will fight with me for 
 Dresda. 
 She is young and we are young, and yet 
 We dare not keep her for our own. Oh God. 
 I wish that I had clung to farming life. 
 And cast my love upon a dairy maid. 
 
 n 
 
My tortured love for her knows no surcease. 
 
 The more I see her pale and helpless, ill, 
 
 The deeper grows my love, my rage at nets ' 
 
 That old men and women weave for us before 
 
 We leave the cradle. 
 
 FRANK. Don't go on like that. 
 Be brave. There is something that we yet can do 
 To frustrate their horrid plans. We are here to help. 
 
 ET DRED. Listen close. His ruin is what I want. 
 
 ETHETv. But he is too rich for that. 
 
 ELDRED. Not money ruin 
 But worse. — his precious fame, to him more dear 
 Than even Dresda's tender girlishness; 
 His reputation as a saintly man, 
 
 His hope of holy apostleship and work ' 
 
 Within a field most prized by learned men. i 
 
 One blemish on his soul of satin white, ' 
 
 And the spiritual empire that he craves is lost. 
 
 ETHEL. That blemish is already his. 
 
 ELDRED. Oh no! 
 His proposals to our friend have had the cloak 
 Of honor. Once prove they were of foul intent. — 
 
 FRANK. But that is where our feebleness still hurts. 
 We have no power to prove a word of truth 
 Or falsity. 
 
 ELDRED. Did you ever plant a seed, 
 And see it grow into a tree? Or throw 
 A stone into the river's midst and see 
 The widening ripples it makes right down the stream? 
 Or light a match and see a City burn? 
 I have begun. I know the men who work 
 About his seminary so august. 
 They love a bit of talk, their life is cold, 
 Held down by stupid rules of dry decorum. 
 
 ETHEL. I should like to see him fall; and after that? 
 
 ELDRED. I must win that shy, sad heart of my timid maid. 
 
 (They gather into a close group, their heads pressed to- 
 gether as if hatching a conspiracy.) 
 
 FRANK. Where lies our task? 
 
 ELDRED. Help on the work, just talk 
 And talk, a word to every one you meet. 
 And Ethel, you will sew some strands to catch 
 The dainty feet of Mrs. Rodney,— SNOB! 
 
 ETHEL. It is better than the other game we played. 
 I feel like a heroine of old romance. 
 Who goes with men to storm a castle wall. 
 
 FRANK. I suppose that I must play the intrepid spy. 
 
 ELDRED. No, no; not that; we are detectives bold and 
 And true and brave, who are going to save a girl 
 From persecution worse than sudden death, — 
 
 28 
 
And then there is a righteous cause at stake 
 
 In turning our youthful wrath against the crime 
 
 Of ancient tyranny. He threatened me 
 
 With downfall because I was so poor and young, 
 
 But when two play a game like that, which takes 
 
 A wrestler's nerve, the victor is not apt 
 
 To be the one who is old. 
 
 (They all laugh hysterically. Basil has entered leisurely, 
 smoking a cigar, and heard the last sentence.) 
 
 BASIL. Is there a prize-fight on tonight? 
 
 ETHEL ( embarrassed!. We spoke 
 In general conversation. How do you do? 
 
 BASIL. Thank you, somewhat better than last Spring. 
 This place is strange for merry hearts to choose 
 On a gala day. The scientists hold here 
 Some curious mysteries, a garden like 
 A torture-chamber or a hangman's cell 
 Right near the gallows' hint of awful death. 
 
 ELDRED. Bah! The thorns and poisons that you do 
 Not see, are worse! 
 
 BASIL. You seem to have a wrong? 
 
 FRANK. Be careful. Lindsay is no friend of ours. 
 He derides our inexperience and youth. 
 And throws our country origin in our face. 
 
 BASIL. A foe along the lines of ceremony, 
 Is sometimes a precious friend, when a common cause 
 Attracts him on the lines of hate. 
 
 ELDRED. You hate 
 A hypocrite, a man who uses symbols 
 And words of sacred truth for his own base ends. 
 That is our common cause. 
 
 BASIL. I know whom you mean. 
 And yet he sits serene on his lofty height. 
 And smiles with brutal condescension on men 
 Who live like men, from all pretenses free. 
 My favorite saint has always been proud Lucifer, 
 Who could fall and glory in his fall, could make 
 A kingdom of his own perdition's loss. 
 But still I would much rather see a saint 
 While reigning in the pearly realms on high. 
 Deprived of his sceptre diamond-headed white, 
 And exposed in naked infamy. 
 
 ETHEL. They say,— 
 
 ELDRED. Your view is good, but say we change the 
 theme. 
 Have you heard some gossip floating in the air 
 Of Jocelyn Stanhope and his pious aims? 
 
 BASIL. A man of worth no doubt, I wonder that 
 Mrs. Rodney finds him such a bore! 
 
 ETHEL. I feel so bad that daily Dresda grows 
 
 29 
 
More ill. 
 
 (Enter Jocelyn. Ethel, Frank and Eldred look guilty and 
 try to assume a natural attitude. Basil nonchalantly takes 
 up his cigar and continues to smoke.) 
 
 ET DRED. I et's seek a grove of more pleasant growths, — 
 A dahlia bed or lillies perfumed sweet. 
 
 (Exit Eldred, Ethel and Frank with a nervous, shuffling 
 tread. ) 
 
 JOCELYN. What are these chicks about? They look like 
 boys 
 Who have crept into a cupboard and filled tkemselves 
 With stolen jam. 
 
 BASIL. I have seen older men 
 I ook just that way. This is a queer retreat, — 
 I came here alone to smoke — the crowd is dense, — 
 But others follow strangely in my train. 
 
 JOCELYN. Mrs. Rodney meets me here at four. 
 
 BASIL. No doubt you will have a pleasant interview. 
 
 JOCELYN. You taunt me with her marked dislike, I 
 know. 
 But then I meet the same contempt from you 
 And many others. Our calling is a path 
 Of thorns — I named this garden from my own choice 
 As the place where best I could meet her hostile tongue. 
 I wonder if the snake as deeply hates 
 The bird that flies above it, as those who walk 
 Our daily walks of earth hate those who soar, 
 And yet in ancient geological time. 
 Bird and reptile met in one strong being. 
 
 BASIL. I have no hate for holy men as such. 
 Would bend my knee to any saint I thought 
 Sincere, but when the pivot of one's faith 
 Turns round a girl who tempts the sensual man, 
 While holding fast an innocence like snow. 
 My homage staggers from the nasty blow. 
 
 JOCELYN. You would deny to me a right you claim 
 Yourself? For you the vision of her beauty 
 To allure your jaded sense, for me no glimpse 
 Of that soul of hers, that beam of purest light. 
 Which penetrates the darkest heart, even there 
 Diffusing its wealth of mystic enchantment charm. 
 
 BASIL. She looks so ill that soon from the other side 
 Of the darkest of all dark valleys she will peer 
 Upon our mortal happenings. I hear it said 
 She suffers from the strain you put upon her 
 In ardent, selfish wooing. 
 
 JOCELYN. Who dares say that? 
 
 BASIL. I thought you would jump, for gossip has no place 
 Within a minister's sanctuary 
 
 JOCELYN. I take 
 
 30 
 
My degree next month and then I hope with her 
 
 To seek new fields, away from enemies 
 
 Who vent their jealous rage on the two best things. 
 
 This dreary universe contains, — the church, 
 
 And the woman who is its lovely, ideal flower. 
 
 BASIL. I could pity you and think you crazy, — ^mad, — 
 With sophistry of the theological schools, 
 If I did not see the harm you work. Farewell. 
 
 (Exit Basil.) 
 
 JOCELYN (alone). It seems as if this place were made 
 for me, 
 As if an avenging God would line my shirt 
 With thorns, and stick a nettle in my throat, 
 And poison the very water that I quaff. 
 I can't be wrong. It is not divine to seek 
 The heavenly kingdom in a sad retreat alone, 
 But surely in a being rarely fine. 
 With just that exquisite essence of living nerve. 
 That makes of a doll a human child, and turns 
 Man's longing for the truth into a prayer. 
 The years have taught me nothing else but this, — 
 And yet their light, so clear to me, is dim 
 To others. A precipice seems to yawn for me 
 Just as the revelation breaks from heaven. 
 Oh God have mercy! 
 
 (Enter Zenobia. She looks very white and intense and 
 watches him a moment before she speaks.) 
 
 ZENOBIA (laughing sarcastically). I feel constrained to 
 admire 
 That poise of yours, so humble, suppliant. 
 
 (Jocelyn starts, turns and looks at her with tragic eyes.) 
 Did not my duty lie along the course 
 Of your undoing, I could almost fall in love. 
 With a man so sublimely blind, unconscious quite. 
 Of the monstrous, dampening shadow that he casts. 
 
 JOCELYN (with set jaws). I came prepared to hear the 
 worst your tongue 
 Can manufacture of invective sharp. 
 Now tell me clearly why you cut me so? 
 
 ZENOBIA. But first tell me, do you hug your purpose still 
 Of wedding Dresda? 
 
 JOCELYN. Could you think my love 
 So weak that it would waver and collapse 
 Before your challenge and sarcastic charge? 
 Am I the down that from the thistle's heart 
 Blows heedless here and there with changing breeze? 
 
 ZENOBIA. Your love is for her radiant youth of course. 
 
 JOCELYN. Say rather for her mind of heaven's own make. 
 
 ZENOBIA. If mind is the magnet that holds you fast, 
 allured, 
 
 31 
 
You might have chosen me instead of lier. 
 
 JOCELYN. YOU? It is my turn to laugh. Why you? 
 
 ZENOBIA. I am a more appropriate age, am free 
 To marry where I choose — I might choose you. 
 
 JOCELYN. What strange turn of diabolical mirth 
 Is this? 
 
 ZENOBIA. You don't deny I have a mind? 
 
 JOCELYN. A mind of a certain sort, the kind that loves 
 The crooked alleys of an ancient street 
 Behind high walls of feudal prisons built, 
 Rather than the broad way of open truth. 
 
 ZENOBIA. Say that I have the mind befits my years. 
 While Dresda's is the child's unwritten page. 
 Then, you who aim to be counted of the wise. 
 Prefer a primer to a book of lore! 
 
 JOCELYN. Why yes if the primer tells the holy truth, 
 And the learned book is a Machiavelli text. 
 
 ZENOBIA. Your priestly tongue has quite as many forks 
 As mine. How wherein lie my deeds of guilt? 
 
 JOCELYN. You wield an aggressive sword in times of 
 peace. 
 
 ZENOBIA. I protect my charge from the hunter's 'gun, 
 that's all; 
 From men like you who want her for her youth, 
 Who would use her buddmg life as dinner wine. 
 Or choicest food to feed their appetite. 
 
 JOCELYN. You almost make me think your own blood 
 runs 
 Too swiftly for a woman of your years. 
 
 ZENOBIA. You think perhaps a yellow jealousy 
 Tempts me to struggle for your belated love? 
 That I would thrust my darling in the shade. 
 To seize myself that wandering soul of yours; 
 That in those eyes so soft, appealing, mild, 
 I would see the image of my practiced charm? 
 You think my fingers yearn to wind and wind 
 Through the lustrous silver locks that crown 
 Your haughty head? 
 
 (She bends forward with sudden intensity.) 
 Then be it so, my friend! 
 
 You think it is right to make of love a chase. 
 To draw your victim's life from her very heart. 
 Then I will follow with the same idea. 
 Jocelyn, I love you! You must be mine! You must! 
 I am rich and powerful and strong, a queen 
 If you but knew the truth, with friends who walk 
 The heights of ecclesiastical influence. 
 My forty years but give me depth and glow. 
 I want you as a vulture wants the dead; 
 I want you as the imprisoned want the light; 
 
 32 
 
I want you as the heathen wants a god; 
 T want you as the djing want a hope; 
 I want you as the desert wants the rain. 
 Jocelyn, my Jocelyn, come to me, my love! 
 
 (Her tone throughout is one of extreme passion and seduc- 
 tion. The scene is half in intense light, half in intense 
 shadow. The brilliant, highly colored tropical plants have 
 the sun on them and the green herbs are in the shade. Her 
 voice quivers with passionate entreaty, and she approaches 
 to put her arms about him. He seizes her violently and 
 thrusts her from him with such force that she falls in one 
 of the beds -of thorns. The glass protecting a precious 
 tropical plant splinters as she crashes into it.) 
 
 JOCELYN. You fiend in woman's shape, you tempt me 
 down 
 To hell. You mock my piety, my love, 
 My hope of life to come, my hatred, scorn. 
 Of all that is low and vile, — you vilify 
 The sex that blooms in Dresda's purity. 
 Oh God have mercy! 
 
 (Zenobia picks herself up. Her lace is badly torn, and her 
 hands and face are torn and bleeding.) 
 
 ZENOBIA. My sex is no excuse — 
 I ask no privilege, — there is. none for you. 
 I can reply as you have seen before. 
 
 (She places her two hands on his shoulders and gives him 
 a violent push. In his excitement he has not time to defend 
 himself and falls like her in a bed of nettles and splintering 
 glass.) 
 
 ZENOBIA. And now perhaps we can talk on an equal 
 plane! 
 
 (He picks himself up like her, his face also torn and bleed- 
 ing. They front each other in frightful tragic intensity.) 
 
 JOCELYN. To think that I have sunk as low as this! 
 A man of God to scuflSe like a dog 
 In physical contest with the weaker sex! 
 
 ZENOBIA. Why be a man of God? Why not be mine? 
 You hate me so I have some hope of love. 
 
 (She approaches him once more; he makes another repul- 
 sive movement, but, unwilling to knock her down again, his 
 movement is too feeble, and he becomes locked in her em- 
 brace. They stand thus in tableau, with their hands and 
 faces bleeding in the most ghastly manner. Enter Dresda. 
 She looks pale, thin and extremely ethereal. She stands for 
 a moment too aghast to speak, then gives a terrifice, piercing 
 shriek.) 
 
 DRESDA. Zenobia! Jocelyn! Who has killed you both? 
 
 (Jocelyn and Zenobia hurriedly fall apart, both panting for 
 breath, and Zenobia begins wiping her face with her hand- 
 
 33 
 
kerchief. He goes to the rear of the stage.) 
 
 ZENOBIA. It is nothing dear; these thorns are very sharp. 
 
 DRESDA. Everybody missed you, — Basil said 
 I should find you here. Oh tell me what is wrong? 
 
 ZENOBIA. The thorns, that's all, — we plucked them and 
 they stung. 
 I must go and wash my face. Make my excuse 
 To any friends who ask, — you must not stay here. 
 
 JOCELYN (turning round). I wish to speak to you right 
 now, Miss Dresda; 
 Just hear my version of this interview. 
 
 ZENOBIA. You see he is afraid, much more than I! 
 You can stay this once, — I'll send a guard to stand 
 At a little distance, in case of any harm. 
 
 (Exit Zenobia, calling out as she goes, "Gardener, 
 Gardener.") 
 
 JOCELYN. Dresda, my little girl, you know I love you; 
 That somehow I should lose the wish to live. 
 If my living were not all entwined with thought 
 Of you, as the ribbons in your lovely hair. 
 
 DRESDA. Oh, Jocelyn don.'t say that again, I pray. 
 I would love you if I could! I would! I would! 
 But something beats within my tired brain 
 That will not let me love. 'Tis like a stone 
 That at my birth was bedded in my head, 
 To obstruct the flow of gentle tenderness. 
 I want to love, to melt and glow and live. 
 But the feeling will not come. 
 
 JOCELYN. It will come in time. 
 If you once escape from Zenobia's baleful hate. 
 She is the barrier like a battery 
 
 Of foul-mouthed cannon that shoots away from you 
 All happiness, all power to thaw and warm. 
 
 DRESDA. Oh Zenobia cannot be of evil mind! 
 
 JOCELYN. Just now she made a low attack on me, — we 
 fought 
 And fell in the brambles and the breaking glass, — 
 
 DRESDA with a cry). Jocelyn! WTiat awful thing is 
 this you say? 
 YOU FOUGHT! Why that is what the wild beasts do! 
 I seem to swim at the bottom of the sea. 
 And close my eyes because I fear to see 
 Some awful reptile swimming in the ooze! 
 Oh, tell me nothing more or I will die! 
 
 JOCELYN (soothingly). My little girl, it is all too much 
 for you. 
 You can't go on without a friend, my sweet. 
 Jocelyn loves you with all his bursting heart,— 
 Your head upon my shoulder, your arms about 
 My neck, — one kiss from that rare mouth of thine. 
 
 34 
 
DRESDA. With all that blood upon your face,— I can't! 
 I must go and look for Eldred, — he is true, 
 Although so helpless against his seniors' might. 
 
 (She begins to cry softly, while he tries to wipe the blood 
 from his face and bends forward with his mouth shaped for a 
 kiss. Enter Frank.) 
 
 FRANK. Mr. Stanhope, I was sent to look for you. 
 I bring a letter from the seminary. 
 
 JOCELYN (starting). Give it to me. What can they 
 have to say? 
 
 (He seizes the letter, reading it feverishly, hastily, with 
 obvious agitation.) 
 
 JOCEL.YN. They have combined to trample out my life! 
 
 FRANK. You wish to send an answer now by me? 
 
 JOCELYN. By you? Oh no! I'll take this blow alone. 
 
 DRESDA. Then I am in the way also, — goodbye. 
 
 JOCELYN. No you must stay, for you are the guiltless 
 cause. 
 Just listen while I read this document 
 Of final doom, like a sentence to be hanged. 
 Or the severing touch of the guillotine's cold steel. 
 "A rumor of growing strength has reached our ears, 
 Concerning you and a love too much of flesh. 
 It is said that you forget your sacred work, 
 To dalh round a budding maiden's charms. 
 Her youth and innocence give this the guise 
 Of the tempting fiend whose footsteps follow on 
 The untrodden path of flowery, verdant Spring. 
 We have no proof that you have stooped so far, 
 Or that you stagger on the dizzy brink 
 Or her betrayal, but surely, you must know. 
 Suspicion must not even send one dart 
 Athwart the reputation of a man 
 Of God; therefore, for you there cannot be 
 A ministry sanctioned by this school for saints. 
 In whatever walks you choose henceforth, we pray 
 That God will guide you to a worthy end." 
 
 DRESDA. Oh, Jocelyn, I am so sorry, does it mean 
 That vou have lost the career for which you worked 
 So hard? 
 
 JOCELYN. It means my endeavor's whole eclipse. 
 I am like an acrobat, who, a thousand times. 
 Leaps through the air from moving swing to swing. 
 At last to miss his aim and fall to earth 
 A mangled corpse! And you, the one pure thing, 
 Of fairy light that glimmered in my gloom, 
 Have brought me to this end! 
 
 DRESDA (frightened and nervous). Oh, don't say that! 
 Although somehow I cannot love you, and fear 
 Your weight of years upon my trembling nerves, 
 
 35 
 
I still believe you mean to search the way 
 Of heaven; and if you like I will go to them, 
 And swear you never spoke but in honor's vein. 
 
 JOCELYN. My little friend, it is too late for that; 
 Self-deceiving, I have tried to think 
 I loved you for your undimmed spark of soul, 
 The divinity unclouded in your eyes. 
 But somehow now in my being's very depth, 
 In convulsions that shake the heart in my troubled breast, 
 I know I love j'ou with abandonment. 
 My motives have lain along a zigzag course, 
 Tlie long climb I have made to reach the summit 
 Of the mind's free scope, has strayed somehow with you 
 To groves whose perfume intoxicates and drugs 
 The reeling senses, — Dresda, my love is real. 
 You see it now in its very truth and shame. 
 What shall we do? Now in my hour of pain 
 Will you come to me? 
 
 DRESDA. I feel as if a crime 
 Were somehow hiding, lurking here between us. 
 I am AFRAID! AFRAID! What can they mean 
 By saying you meant to betray my trust? 
 
 JOCELYN. They meant 
 To read a riddle beyond their learned ken. 
 Dresda, my little girl, my pure white flower. 
 It was you who betrayed poor Jocelyn to his fall! 
 
 (He sinks heavily on the ground near the bench on which 
 she is seated and buries his face in her skirts, while a servant 
 appears ominously in the rear of the stage and Dresda looks 
 panic-stricken, as if she would die of fright.) 
 
 CURTAIN. 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 (Scene, same as Act I. Autumn, just a year from the time 
 of the opening of the play. It is morning, with rather a cold, 
 wintry light playing over the scene. Dresda is discovered 
 in an invalid chair, with a wrapping of white furs. Ethel 
 is seated next to her.) 
 
 DRESDA. How strange it is our wishes change with time! 
 Last year I pined to fly beyond the hills. 
 Fancying that a lovely kingdom there, 
 Was waiting to receive my eager gaze. 
 And now I am so near the mystic bourn 
 Dividing what we know from what we want 
 To know, my wish has languished and expired, 
 And I would rather stay right here with you. • 
 
 ETHEL. At last I hope you will be one of us, — 
 You have been much with those of older years. 
 And strained your mind to keep within their field, 
 
 36 
 
While we have lagged behind without a thought. 
 You know that Frank and I will marry soon 
 Why should not you and Eldred do the same? 
 
 DRESDA (shaking her head). It is too late; I can no 
 longer bear 
 To hear a word of any kind of love. 
 Distracted love has brought me face to face 
 With death. I am a slender sapling tree 
 Shattered and killed by passion's stormy blast. 
 
 ETHEL. A rose chopped down by a giant tomahawk! 
 But with the roots still there, it will grow again. 
 Your friends all worked to bring about his fall. 
 And it came much sooner than we dared to hope. 
 Without his prized degree of divinity, 
 Jocelyn Stanhope must forever bow 
 His humbled head, and leave this place where eyes 
 Of curious gossips pry into his face. 
 And question what the monstrous crime could be. 
 That led the dons to drive him from their school. 
 
 DRESDA (looking around nervously to see *hat no one is 
 looking). Ethel! I have not told you what he said! 
 He put the blame on me, unhappy me. 
 He said I had seduced him to his shame; — 
 You know I ran from him like a frightened child, 
 T\Tien first he told me of his desperate love. 
 And fled to Eldred in intense alarm. 
 
 (Enter Eldred as the last words are spoken.) 
 And yet it seems I was the unconscious lure 
 That worked such havoc with poor .JocehTi's fame. 
 
 ELDRED (advancing to her). And why not run to Eldred 
 now, my dear? 
 Your are ill and pale, so overwrought and sad 
 You cannot see the natural hue of things. 
 You know that I have loved you through and through. 
 And is not such unchanging love a wealth? 
 He kept his vow of vengeance to make me poor, 
 But could not change the purpose of my love. 
 Dresda. just be a simple girl for once, 
 And come with me to the little church where Frank 
 And Ethel will make their marriage bonds next week. 
 We shall be poor, but what is that my dear? 
 I have no fear of labor's arduous way, — • 
 My muscles have the strength of iron cords. 
 
 DRESDA ( faintly). Oh don't! You make it all so much 
 the worse. 
 I could not love you any more than Jocelyn, 
 But only feared you less: — I feel such guilt 
 Towards both of you. Oh why is life so hard? 
 Why does our dream of fairy realms superb 
 Become an ashen heap in actual life? 
 
 37 
 
A thousand bells are ringing in my brain, * 
 
 But for all their sound, they make no harmony. 
 
 I feel as if the one great thing for me. 
 
 Remaining in the wreck of all I hoped, 
 
 Would be a burst from music's beating heart. 
 
 Sung by a perfect choir sent from Heaven. 
 
 (She has been looking away dreamily as she says this, then 
 returning to her surroundings, she speaks to Ethel.) 
 They promised me at the church below the hill, 
 To toll the steeple bell when I am gone. 
 
 El DRED. How can you talk of death, and all that means. 
 When the whole world is ful of bridal joy? 
 I hate TO hurt you when you are so ill. 
 But, almost, it seems to me you turn 
 Your heart from clasp of ardent, yearning arms. 
 And pray to go into the dark beyond. 
 
 DRESDA. If you had been the soul that, joined to mine, 
 Was destined to a course of filmy flame. 
 Across the fields of Knowledge's vast domain, 
 Through worlds untraversed yet to swing afar, 
 I would live and live and live with you until 
 The seas were tired of their ebb and flow. 
 And the fertilt earth forgot to yield her grain. 
 He did not come. Instead, I stood alone. 
 While round my head, the hurricane of wrong, 
 Swept in a fury unrelenting, strong. 
 And pounding fiercely on the fragile walls 
 Of my poor heart, quite bruised its will to live. 
 
 ELDRED. A hurricane! Not that! A human fiend 
 Was the avalanche that swept your being down; 
 And I with you was drowned and hurled along. 
 Till now I almost stand cast down like you 
 In the fetid marsh the seducer made his own. 
 
 (Eldred speaks with angry tears in his voice.) 
 He is a devil come on earth, I know. 
 To steal pure girls from love and life and joy. 
 I worked to bring about his fall. Ii came, — 
 Yes, came, far sooner than I dared to hope. 
 And yet it came too late for you, my sweet. 
 Why now, I will work again with vim increased. 
 To make his fall a thing complete, — a death! 
 
 (Dresda gives a faint cry, and sinks back on her pillows 
 with a ghastly hue. Ethel rushes to her in alarm.) 
 
 ETHEL. Dresda! Look up! You faint! Oh don't! Do 
 speak! 
 
 (Enter Basil and Zenobia.) 
 
 ZENOBIA. What have you done to make my birdie faint? 
 
 ETHEL (starting and looking frightened and abject before 
 Zenobia). Oh don't blame me, — I tried my best to 
 soothe 
 
 38 
 
Her drooping spirits, — Eldred talked to her; 
 Perhaps she felt some shock from his bold tongue. 
 His love for her is strong and unrestrained. 
 
 DRESDA (looking up). Mr. Lindsay, I am so glad that 
 you are here. 
 
 BASIL. So GLAD!' Your words like nectar's fountain 
 flow! 
 I am, you know, the cushion for your feet. 
 I never made a single claim to urge 
 A love you could not give. I am too coarse. 
 For a being rare and fine uke you; the moss 
 Should be content to hold the tender fern 
 Of feathery maiden hair within its bed. 
 And never ask a question that presumes. 
 
 DRESDA ( smiling). You did not tell me of those stunted 
 trees 
 We talked about a year ago; and yet, 
 Without your help, I learned som^e sorry things. 
 
 BASIL. I fear they hurt you overmuch, my dear. 
 A little girl like you should see this life. 
 Where grime and pain so large, conspicuous, lie. 
 But through a lens of soft, diffusing rays. 
 I gave my humble self for such a lens, 
 While others would reveal the naked light. 
 
 DRESDA. But then, my friend, I wanted so to learn! 
 
 BASIL. And would you stand on the desert's scorching 
 plain, 
 To look at torrid noon, right in the sun. 
 Until his kindling glance burned through your soul 
 And consumed your body in its blazing flame? 
 
 DRESDA. That seems to be the thing that I have done! 
 
 (She starts up with a wild, unearthly look) 
 These bells, these bells, forever in my brain, 
 They ring in discord harsh, all jangled shrieks. 
 Oh don't you hear them now? They ring! They ring! 
 
 (Zenobia steps forward and takes Dresda in her arms. 
 The girl falls back in a half-faint.) 
 
 ZENOBIA. I must take her home, — there are too many 
 here. 
 
 (Calls a servant from the rear of the stage.) 
 Dodson! Help me wheel her chair inside. 
 
 (They all look wistfully at the chair as it is being wheeled 
 off.) 
 
 DRESDA (turning to them as the chair goes off). Don't 
 look so sad, perhaps at last I'll fly 
 To those far lands 1 wanted so to see, — 
 The silk pavilions in the amber streams. 
 The home of love where love is never pain. 
 I'll meet you there, — 
 
 (Exit Zenobia, Dresda and the servant Dodson wheeling 
 
 39 
 
the chair.) 
 
 ETHEL (bursting into tears). I hate to see her go, 
 Because I know it is the very end. 
 My work with her was all that seemed worth while, 
 I was the instrument her slender hands 
 Touched to joy or sharp discordant notes. 
 When she is dead, the broken strings unfingered, 
 Will be as useless as old bits of junk. 
 
 (Enter Frank, alarmed and angry.) 
 
 FRANK. Why do you cry so near your wedding day? 
 
 ETHEL. I have looked my last on Dresda's living face. 
 
 FRANK. Don't I count against her in the scale? 
 
 ETHEL (weeping violently). Why you are just my hus- 
 band, that is all; 
 She was the ligiit by which I walked the earth. 
 
 (Frank draws her aside.) 
 
 BASn^. There is nothing left for me but a down-hill grade, 
 I panted by her side a little way. 
 On that steep climb her ardent mind so craved; 
 But now 1 see in front a sheer descent 
 Into the void of low, material things. 
 
 ELDRED. What is left for me is just my sweet revenge! 
 Let vengeance cold as ice and sharp as steel. 
 Dry up the juices of my human heart! 
 
 (Enter Jocelyn. He looks very pale and haggard, with big 
 black circles around his head. His hair has turned from 
 silver to snow white, and he is thin and stooped.) 
 
 ELDRED (to Jocelyn). I wonaer how you dare to haunt 
 this place! 
 
 JOCELYN. I come to make my terms with you, young 
 
 man 
 
 It is nothing new that an insect in the ground 
 
 Can work enough decay to overthrow 
 
 A throne: the miracle remains that yet 
 
 The world goes forward at such a tortoise pace! 
 
 The study and laborious work of years, 
 
 My mind's deep grasp of newer truths to come. 
 
 My heart's rich longing for a perfect love, 
 
 Were all condemned to fail because a cub 
 
 Like you, must spend his jealous, scalding «pleen 
 
 In low attack upon my moral fame! 
 
 ELDRED. Tet when I made my charge, I scarcely thought 
 To find myself so justified! You c«r! 
 
 (He approaches Jocelyn with a violent gesture, as if he 
 would strike him. Basil and Frank approach and hold him 
 back, and Ethel stands at a little distance terrified.) 
 
 BASIL. It is true we thought you were not good enough 
 To hold the office of a sainted man. 
 We planned a bit to overthrow your fame. 
 But worked no wheels to bring that end about, 
 
 40 
 
Your dismissal came before our schemes were ripe. 
 It was you who made your ow^n unhicky star, 
 When you followea Dresda to the Yosemite. 
 
 EI.DRED. How strange the dons allowed you to remain 
 So long, with sin so black upon your soul! 
 
 ETHEL. Oh don't! How can you fight like that just now? 
 
 JOCELYN. Xo time so good as the one we have at han(i. 
 The indignity I feel quite cuts me through, — 
 [ toss back insults to a foolish boy! 
 
 ELDRED. You did not talk of youth that way this Spring, 
 When you paid your awkward court of middle age. 
 To Dresda's girlish loveliness divine. 
 
 (.His voice is choked with tears of rage and grief. As he 
 ceases speaking there is the loud, emphatic stroke of a 
 church bell. They all, except Jocelyn, stand transfixed with 
 a look of agony on their faces. Jocelyn looks bewildered 
 and alarmed. The sky is overcast and dark with leaden 
 gray clouds and impending thunder. The bell tolls 22 times, 
 each stroke being loud, heavy and distinct. Frank, Eldred 
 and Basil uncover their heads as the tolling goes on, and 
 •Jocelyn still in bewilderment, follows them. As the bell 
 stops Ethel begins to weep violentl\.) 
 
 .JOCELYN. There is a funeral taking place this hour? 
 
 ELDRED (grimly). A funeral? No, a death! The bell 
 has tolled 
 For Dresda Winrising, my angel, killed by you! 
 
 (He bows his head in uncontrollable affliction.) 
 
 JOCELYN (wildly). No, no, you cannot mean that she is 
 dead? 
 
 ETHEL. You heard the strokes, — they were twenty-two, — 
 her age. 
 It was her fancy to have the tolling bell 
 Just as she crossed the fine dividing line 
 Between this earth and whatever comes beyond. 
 She was here before you came and said good-bye. 
 
 JOCELYN. And no one told me that her end was near! 
 My God, I am indeed a punished man! 
 Bereft of every prize that life can give; 
 Not even given one last word of love! 
 
 (He staggers and looks half dazed.) 
 Why — w^hy — how^ black the sky has grow^n! 
 Suppose there is no such thing as heaven above, 
 But just the heaven I saw within her eyes? 
 Oh what is heaven or earth or anything 
 Now she has gone? Twenty-two! The bell 
 Will ring forever in my reeling brain! 
 
 (Enter Zenobia with a white drawn face.) 
 
 ZENOBIA. My Dresda is dead! My little girl, my love, 
 My more than child has closed her azure eyes. 
 Those eyes whose pure cerulean blue looked out 
 
 41 
 
With a smile like flowers that bloom in eternal day 
 Have closed. I saw their heavenly glance depart, 
 And the dull grey glaze of death sweep o'er their iris. 
 
 (She covers her face with her hands.) 
 Forgetfulness, I now implore your aid, 
 To wipe that picture from my aching brain ! 
 
 (Ethel, Basil, Frank and Eldred approach her in an awe- 
 stricken manner, and Jocelyn stands at a distance looking 
 dazed and wild.) 
 
 FRANK. She seemed so strong last year, so full of joy. 
 There seems no reason for her sad decline. 
 
 ZENOBIA. No reason? Then your memory is poor. 
 Like hungry bears who would claw at priceless lace, 
 To clutch the living throat of the one it clothed. 
 You men stretched clumsy, brutal hands to tear 
 Her beauty from the shining soul it framed. 
 
 FRANK (indignantly). You dare not count my brother in 
 that herd! 
 
 BASn^. I was content to be beneath her feet. 
 The basest thing that crawled, whose pleasure lay 
 In looking up to her transcendent height. 
 
 ELDRED. I never stood in your good books, T know, — 
 But my love for her was of the sacred stripe. 
 I fought to save her from her dearest foe,— 
 This would-be saint who stares as if his wits 
 Had gone. See him there in blank amaze. 
 Confounded by the news of Dresda's death! 
 
 ZENOBIA (turning to Jocelyn). It seems the agony I had 
 with you, 
 In that garden, gay and sad, like a torture-hell. 
 Was all in vain, for you are so obtuse 
 You would not see your doom, though dark it stood. 
 One foot before your face! My darling died. 
 The victim of your wild delusion's .might, 
 The momentum of your devouring love of self. 
 Beating upon her shy reluctant heart. 
 
 ELDRED. If it would bring her back to life again, 
 I would cast him from me like an orange peel. 
 But with the thought of Dresda, dead — quite dead, — 
 I feel that I could choke him where he stands. 
 
 (Jocelyn advancing to them still with a wild, strange look 
 and stretching out his hands to them piteously.) 
 
 JOCELYN. Don't talk that way to me, — if you could see 
 The black abyss in which my soul has sunk. 
 You would shriek for very pity's sake, for shame. 
 That you could so beat a man despised of God, 
 A man, or less than man, — I cannot tell — 
 Who shudders in his own contempt, — who loathes 
 His very name and face, and would run in fright 
 From the revealings of a tell-tale, mocking mirror. 
 
 42 
 
1 wanted to find the good, the high, the true. 
 
 I did, — I did, — 1 had no priest for guide. 
 
 But just that fair young girl in whom I thought 
 
 I saw tlie hope divine, the only chance 
 
 Of this poor stricken world, condemned to vice. 
 
 And doleful nothingness. Then passion came, 
 
 And caught me in its mad ecstatic grip. 
 
 They spealv in physics of a force so strong. 
 
 It is irresistible,— it was that I felt — 
 
 Dragged from my anchor of a student's life, 
 
 By a' magnet drawn through whirling space to hell 
 
 I could not stop. She held my heart bound fast, — 
 
 (His voice grows feeble, husky and far away.) 
 And now% — and now, the valves will work no more; 
 1 drew my life from her, as a little child 
 At the mother's breast. I can't go on without 
 That pure rich stream of living light sublime. 
 
 (They stand looking at him in a frightened, awe-stru-ck 
 manner.) 
 
 Don't look at me like that, you are avenged! 
 What lower thing has ever been produced. 
 Than one who lives to hate his inmost self. 
 
 Who knows that he can never stand alone, 
 
 But must depend for his very breath of life, 
 
 Upon a girl,— a young, young girl, — 
 
 Who died despising him, — a girl who is dead! 
 
 (He breaks into passionate sobs, and falls on his knees. 
 
 The sky grows darker and more overcast. The group press 
 
 more closely about him.) 
 
 JOCELYN. And thus my fateful end now comes upon me, 
 
 My enemies in joy of hate about me. 
 
 And darkest night, within, above, around! 
 
 I die in darkness and alone! My Dresda! 
 
 (He sinks on the ground. They stand silent for a moment, 
 
 then Eldred bends over the prostrate figure.) 
 
 ELD RED. He too is dead! Poor wretch! I wisheu it so! 
 ZENOBIA. Her death was not like this, — I still can hope 
 
 Her spirit has flown to purer spheres than this, 
 
 Translated from our earth, for her too gross, 
 
 And passing with the music of the bells. 
 
 But he, too good for straight, untutored paths. 
 
 Was yet not good enougn to touch her wings 
 
 Of pearly white. 
 
 (There is a peal of thunder and the sky is dark except for 
 
 a beam of greenish light on Zenobia and the body of Jocelyn.) 
 
 He died of a broken heart. 
 
 And died alone, — A priest and fiend in one! 
 
 Jocelyn Stanhope, I forgive you now. 
 
 (She kneels down and bends over him with infinite pity 
 
 as the curtain descends.) CURTAIN. 
 
 43 
 
THE SPELL OF BRONZE. 
 
 A Tragedy in Four Acts. 
 
 SCENES. 
 
 ACT I. — The garden and grounds of a summer-resort in 
 
 the Napa Valley, California. 
 ACT II. — A vineyard and winery in the Napa Valley. 
 ACT III.— The town of Santa Rosa, California. 
 ACT IV.— A thicket at the base of Mount St. Helena.^ 
 CHARACTERS. 
 
 Oriel, a maiden. 
 
 Emanuel, a sage. 
 
 Lucius, a doctor. 
 
 Sibyl, an octoroon. 
 
 Andrew, a dandy. 
 
 Sophia, a girl eager to marry. 
 
 Valeri, a vineyardist. 
 
 Time: The present. 
 
 ACT L 
 
 (Scene, the grounds and garden of a summer-resort in the 
 Napa Valley, California. A bowling alley in the near dis- 
 tance behind the trees. Oriel is seated in a hammock rest- 
 lessly swinging herself.) 
 
 ORIEL. The days go by in flitting loveliness, 
 This land a wizard with its fruits and trees, 
 To charm me into wasteful idleness 
 And lure my spirit from its higher aims. 
 The very insects with their drowsy hum, 
 Infuse the hazy air with love of sloth; 
 The pictured scene of mountain, vale and brook. 
 Now rocks my senses in a strange repose. 
 Is it right to yield to Nature's soft appeal, 
 And dull the voice that calls to sterner things? 
 Shall I leave these vineyards and this lulling ease, 
 For battle in the City's throng, perhaps 
 Amid the poor, or in the crimson path 
 Of crime? Who knows which way is right or where 
 The heart finds surer rest, in contemplation 
 Serenely rapt mid meadows ever green, 
 And sweet content of bird and bee and man 
 Or plunging in the rapid swirl of strife? 
 Here comes the Sage, whose wisdom most profound 
 Might solve the doubt, dispel the gloom that rests 
 Like spiders' webs upon my summer mood. 
 
 (Enter Emanuel.) 
 Dear Sage, now pardon my intrusion rude. 
 But may I talk with you and glance — just glance — 
 Into the varied treasures of your mind? 
 Our lovely scene is not enough, my brain 
 
 44 
 
Craves touch with something new and far and strango. 
 Dear Sage, — ah, — I fear I see you laugh. 
 But tell me how to fill the vacant hours. 
 
 EMANUEL. I must confess I hear you with surprise. 
 Your youth and beauty mark out your career. 
 Wisdom's reign is slight compared to love. 
 But conquer man and all the rest will come; 
 Your path unbounded lies in groves where 1 
 Can only follow. Our sex — so clear to us, - 
 Is for the woman-mind a strange enigma. 
 
 ORIEL. I fear you mock me from your quiet height, 
 To test my strength. For little minds, the love 
 You praise is fit, but not for me. I want 
 A higher pitch and nobler work to buoy 
 My flagging heart and keep me ever sure 
 My life is not an empty breath of days. 
 A wave that .heedless comes and heedless goes. 
 
 EMANUEL. You would not ?ee the nugget at your feet. 
 For peering at the bird in distant flight. 
 In ether disappearing while you gaze 
 On endless stretch of blue. You seem to scorn 
 Young Lucius here whose eyebeams never tire 
 Of resting on your snowy check. He is 
 Not dull. You might explore his mind and light 
 His dimness with your own bright ray of thought. 
 
 ORIEL (playfully.) Such flattery does not well become 
 your age, 
 
 You challenge me to sport of butterflies, 
 And if I follow where you lead, what then? 
 
 EMANUEL. Why then, you will have forgotten Emanuel. 
 
 (Exit Emanuel. Oriel stands for a moment dreamily watch- 
 ing his retreating footsteps. Enter Lucius.) 
 
 LUCIUS. I would say good afternoon, but fear your wrath. 
 
 ORIEL, (turning towards him with a pleasant smile of 
 greeting and outstretched hand.) I have no anger, — not even 
 for a snake. 
 
 LUCIUS. A snake? Your comparison is apt. Perhaps 
 You see in me a glide, reptilian, low? 
 
 ORIEL. Are you so bonded to suspicion's thrall 
 That you fancy slights where none exists? 
 1 spoke in general; my thought of you 
 Was kind. The Sage has spoken of your worth. 
 
 LUCIUS (his face darkening.) My worth? You swear he 
 took no other theme? 
 
 ORIEL. He spoke but little — oh — I would know much more, 
 You look too strong for dalliance here, do tell 
 Me why you came this way for holiday? 
 
 LUCIUS. I am a doctor, here for sake of change. 
 Of body tired never, of soul I am 
 So sick, I feign would seek a novel thrill. 
 
 45 
 
Something to vary the taste of common life. 
 
 The City teems with feeble folk, so weak 
 
 Their minds dwell ever on their own complaints. 
 
 I ache for sight of something rare and bright, 
 
 For glimpse of beauty and for chance to rise. 
 
 To rise above the ordinary plain 
 
 Where little tired men fractious fret. 
 
 ORIEL (with animation.) How strange! You voice my 
 
 own most inmost thought! 
 
 Is it the time's unrest or just a chance. 
 
 That you and I survey the self-same field? 
 
 LUCIITS. Ah, nay, my lady dear; 't is not the same. 
 
 You know that I am not like you. Your eyes 
 
 Must pierce the veil that darkly hangs between 
 
 Your soul and mine. Like summer sunlight dancing 
 
 At play in mountain pools your spirit blithe 
 
 Sports' ever mid the things of joy and lends 
 
 Its radiance to the darkest hidden vale; 
 
 While midnight would more readily describe 
 
 The heritage of sadness that weighs me down. 
 
 And turns to gall the very voice of Spring. 
 
 Your feelings move like spreading branches sweet 
 
 Of fragrant bay-trees, scattering shade, while light. 
 
 And taste and smell, regaled, in them rejoice. 
 
 Alas! You see in me instead the roots. 
 
 The part that lives beneath the earth nor dares 
 
 To peep above the ground or to intrude 
 
 Upon the laughing face of field and sky. 
 
 ORIEL (gayly.) Is that the way I look through other's 
 eyes? 
 
 I think you all conspire to make me vain. 
 And yet it seems you give yourself the best, — • 
 The loveliest flower must first have roots in earth, 
 Before it springs into its perfumed sway. 
 Come, come, be you the bay-tree, large and strong, 
 While I will be a plant of humbler birth. 
 The slender brier sweet, yet many thorned. 
 Or yonder peeping pansy staring wide. 
 And as we are alike, yet not alike, 
 Let us begin our search for wonder-land; 
 You say you long to rise, now I would soar 
 Into the very dome of Heaven, the blue 
 That stretches vast, unknown above our heads. 
 
 LUCIUS. The first great step must be the eclispe of fear. 
 ORIEL (laughs defiantly.) Why fear? I have no knowl- 
 edge of the word. 
 
 (Enter Sibyl. She stands at a little distance in a listening 
 attitude.) 
 
 LUCIUS. Knowing not fear you are a child unborn. 
 Sibyl's lips would tell another tale. 
 
 46 
 
She is your friend? 
 
 ORIEL. Why yes and no; we met 
 But yesterday; she is so dazzling bright, 
 Her eyes so glowing brown, her hair like bronze, — 
 As bronze as yours, — you look a bit a like. 
 
 LUCIUS (angrily.) You dream I She is a woman through 
 and though 
 
 Her features soft with Nature's rosy hues. 
 Though otherwise I lack, I am a man. 
 
 ORIEL. My lightest word still works in you offense; 
 I'll go to cool my spirit on the top 
 Of yonder mountain where it hits the sky. 
 Perchance the vast long view of velvet woods. 
 That move as if by gentle music swayed. 
 Will give me eyes to read your soul aright. 
 Adieu. 
 
 (Exit Oriel. Sibyl advances to Lucius.) 
 
 SIBYL (frowning darkly.) I might have known that you 
 would lie; 
 
 That under flattery's magic touch you'd reel. 
 You said you would but think of her as prey.— 
 I see you gaze upon her love-ensnared ; 
 And I am forced to play the monitor. 
 
 LLTCIUS. You mean you take yourself the place of spy. 
 I will not be in bond to you or her, 
 Or any other; my aim is to be free. 
 My mind may rove as rove it will at large. 
 And if I choose to play at love, well then, 
 'Tis no affair of yoiirs. 
 
 SIBYL. If I were sure 
 You only PLAYED at love, I'd be content. 
 I am not sure; I can't believe; I know 
 Temptation's honey is on her marble brow. 
 Her icy ease, her lofty pride, so white, — ■ 
 
 LUCIUS. So white! Oh, do not speak that word again; 
 You would pull me back to you, your dusky beauty 
 Glories in its own dark blaze; you think 
 That you and I are one, a link of death 
 Fast uniting us like corpse and coffin 
 Dropped into the moldy depths of clay. 
 (With passionate angry vehemence.) 
 No, no, I swear to you I will be free. 
 From you and all your race, from all the hopes 
 That lit our fathers' path, our mothers' woe. 
 I am so strong in my own might and right. 
 I dare to stand alone without a past. 
 My father's ardent ghost will be no goad 
 To drive me on the swamps where he expired. 
 Nor will my mother's blood find voice in me. 
 Alone I go my way, alone I plough 
 
 47 
 
The fields of this uncertain, perilous life. 
 For you, my only thought is one of pity. 
 
 SIBYL. You may leap and vault and madly try lo climb. 
 And hurl your savage pity at my head. 
 Escape is not for you. Your parents hold 
 The sceptre o'er your head, with me they claim 
 Your best endeavor. You are mine, in love, 
 In life, in hope, in all we hope to win. 
 
 (She embraces him as a mother would a child.) 
 We'll play the game together yet, proud heart. 
 Just you and I with all the rest against. 
 And in the darkness of our love so dim. 
 So strangel\' formed from out our muddy birth. 
 Will glow in fight the lambent flames of hate. 
 Revenge remains for all our days a task. 
 Oh look! there Andrew comes into my lure. 
 
 (Enter Andrew. He looks thin and pale and sick, but is 
 jauntily dressed like a modern dandy.) 
 
 LUCIUS. To live but for revenge is savage taste. 
 1 would not gain my end by others' hurt. 
 Humble, they should bend the knee before I strike; 
 Pursue your own device: leave me to mine. 
 
 (Exit Lucius. Andrew approaches Sibyl.) 
 
 SIBYL. I am so glad your happy face appears. 
 The gloom of Lucius weighs me down with pain. 
 His blood runs bile and jaundice films his eye. 
 
 ANDREW. He may be pining for a scornful girl. 
 
 SIBYL. You think he is too much with Oriel? 
 
 ANDREW. With Oriel! You tempt me to the brink 
 Of compliment, — as if you were not all 
 The beauty that this county boasts to-day! 
 
 SIBYL. Oh, no, I am not fair, my eyes are brown. 
 
 ANDREW. A blonde is tame. T would not turn my head 
 To mark a cold, pale cheek and frozen glance. 
 In you the ruby glows, life's wai-ming fire. 
 
 SIBYL. And you would rather burn than die of cold! 
 
 ANDREW. I feel a stronger man when you are near. 
 If I am headlong at the game of love 
 Forgive me, for my method is that way. 
 
 SIBYL. You think to run a race against the men 
 Who dozens deep surround me day by day. 
 And beg one little word of promised love? 
 In what do you excel that thus you aim? 
 
 ANDREW. I boast some place in choice society, 
 I often dine among the rich and smart. 
 My father stands in commerce well enough, 
 In church we all are held in some esteem. 
 
 SIBYL. You dazzle me by such a list of wealth — 
 You dine, — you go to church, — you are esteemed, — • 
 And yet you love poor Sibyl! I am amazed. 
 
 48 
 
ANDREW. But wait a month or two, — I will propose! 
 I think that marriage is the very thing 
 To rouse me now that dancing has grown stale. 
 I need a little time to think but you ' 
 Meanwhile will hold me in your mind, a chance! 
 
 SIBYL. Oh, do not be too sure! Your rivals stand 
 Before you, grim.arrayed, there's Lucius now; 
 He mourns, but sadness once cast off, beware! 
 
 ANDREW. I will not leave this place, no fear. Why see 
 How late it grows! I must go and nap awhile 
 Before the call to dine an hour from now. 
 
 (Exit Andrew. Sibyl left alone in soliloquy.) 
 
 SIBYL. I could laugh and laugh and laugh to see him 
 woo, 
 
 Did not the satire burn into my heart. 
 To think that I should stoop to lend my ear 
 To such a puny thing while Lucius stands 
 Aloof in haughty silence hating me. 
 The one a trampled blade of grass compared 
 To the other's mighty spreading branch of oak; 
 A whimpering cur beside a lion august; 
 A stagnant city pool beside a sea; 
 And yet and yet the little one is white; 
 No stain of brown is in his veins, no taint 
 Of mixture twixt the races of this lana! 
 So must I bend my neck to Andrew's yoke, 
 Pretend to love what I can only loathe, 
 And cringe to pure white blood in empty shell. 
 Because, oh God, I, too, am partly black! 
 He not knowing that adores my face, 
 My sparkling eyes, my warm and glowing cheeks. 
 And if he knew? And if proud Oriel knew? 
 Would Lucius still hold for her nis potent spell? 
 In face of this, 'tis madness to be good: 
 Cast out revenge he said, oh saint-like man. 
 Though prostrate at your feet, I cannot obey. 
 Oh Lucius, Lucius, stay with me, oh stay: 
 
 (She gives a prolonged wail and leans against a tree, hiding 
 her face in its bark.) 
 
 (Enter Sophia. She is nice-looking and distinguished, but 
 not handsome.) 
 
 SOPHIA. You looked so lonely that I ventured near; 
 Tell me your sorrows, dear, the tree is deaf. 
 You'll find no comfort in its roughened bark. 
 
 SIBYL. I sought no comfort for I have need of none; 
 My eyes were aching from the glare, that's all. 
 
 SOPHIA. Indeed? Where are the men? 
 
 SIBYL. Why, I don't know. 
 Three women and two men, I must be odd. 
 With you Miss Oriel will divide the spoils, — 
 
 49 
 
I'll watch the sport but never enter in. 
 
 SOPHIA. It seems to me that I am the lonely one. 
 I have my trunks all packed with pretty gowns, 
 And thought to spend a summer full of fun, 
 But every one is chill, — and selfish, too. 
 You say that you are odd, yet the pale, thin man 
 Is at your side obedient day and night. 
 Oriel likes the ancient sage, while I — 
 
 SIBYL. While you seem fitted more to Lucius' taste. 
 Why over there by himself he plays at bowls, — 
 Look through the trees and see his stalwart form 
 Outlined; he is a rarely handsome man. 
 I have known him long.— but as a sister may. 
 
 Lucius! 
 
 LUCIUS (from a distance.) Who spoke? Did some one 
 call my name? 
 
 SIBYL. Come here, we women find it very dull. 
 
 (Re-enter Lucius.) 
 This lady thinks that Napa's very tame. 
 We would not have her leave condemning us. 
 Let's show we can be merry, dance and sing, 
 Trip through the woods on skipping, velvet toes, 
 Like gnomes or fairies in the children's tales. 
 Now Where's my wand? 
 
 SOPHIA. Oh, yes. let's frolic some! 
 
 LUCIUS. Perhaps you'd like to play a game of bowls? 
 
 SOPHIA (eagerly.) I've never played but I could quickly 
 learn. 
 
 SIBYL. A game for two — you do not want me then — 
 I'll look for Oriel and Andrew, too. 
 We'll win them to our festive purpose now; 
 Our energies combined we'll shake the hills 
 With laughter blithe. The birds will trill with us. 
 And echo will, awaked, new music try. 
 
 (Exit Sibyl, laughing hysterically.) 
 
 LUCIUS. I suppose you think her very wild and strange? 
 
 SOPHIA. I do not mind — she is your friend. 
 
 LUCIUS. My friend! 
 Oh, yes, we all are friends, come now, you too. 
 Are in this summer commonwealth, with us 
 Agreed to live the law of equal rights. 
 
 SOPHIA. Of equal rights? Oh, no. As if I saw 
 No difference twixt you and other men! 
 We can play at being friends just for the nonce — 
 But still I mark the tight-drawn laws of caste. 
 
 LUCIUS (biting his lip.) What caste am I? 
 
 SOPHIA. Why doctors are on top, 
 For learning, social poise and all the rest, — 
 Besides you look — 
 
 LUCIUS. Let's hurry to our game, 
 
 50 
 
I need not ask your caste, your face proclaims 
 Your birth from out our country's ancient stock; — 
 How well your gown becomes your slender grace! 
 
 SOPHIA. I love to hear you speak, go on, go on; 
 Your voice is rich and full like organ tones. 
 
 LUCIUS. Oh, that is habit won among the sick: 
 The doctor's task you know is one to soothe. 
 He brings to racking pain a tender voice. 
 Now come, you look a little pale, shall I 
 Apply my skill and bring your color back? 
 
 SOPHIA (dimpling and smiling.) Why yes— and — no — I 
 seem to hesitate, — 
 
 There is a languor in my blood, I own. 
 But I'll not speak of that nor of your skill — 
 I'll find my health in friendship and bright talk. 
 
 LUCIUS. There is a tonic far exceeds all these 
 To bring the flush of morn to maidens' cheeks. 
 And make them tread elastic on the heath 
 And up the terraced mountain height like fawns. 
 One medicine strong, and only one, I know 
 To make young blood like ichor of the gods, 
 And give to dullest eyes the gleam of stars. 
 Now guess, what magic potion do I mean r 
 
 SOPHIA (coquettishly.) I can't for I'm not learned in 
 gypsy lore, 
 
 I am a stranger in this country here, 
 And could not call a single flower by name. 
 But I would like my eyes to gleam like stars, — 
 Perhaps vou give a little dose, — 
 
 LUCIUS. Why not? 
 
 (Approaching and bending over her.) 
 My heart oe'rflows with tremblings of sweet love. 
 Awaits a moment to burst forth in glee 
 Upon an answering heart. You want to learn 
 The game of bowls? Come here beneath the shade 
 Of that great maple tree where we'll be hid 
 From the sun now grown so warm with ebbing day. 
 
 (They withdraw to a little distance. Enter Sibyl. She is 
 joined after a moment by Oriel.) 
 
 ORIEL. I have not had a chance to talk with you, 
 Yet toward your face I have been strangely drawn. 
 From some past dream your eyes now look at me. 
 You may have sat to some rapt artist's brush. 
 Or had your prototype upon the stage. 
 
 SIBYL (on the defensive.) I am no artist's model, nor 
 would I be 
 
 An actress bold and gay: you wish to peer 
 Into the past to prove I speak the truth? 
 
 ORIEL. No, no: I meant to speak in terms of praise. 
 Your beauty wrought in me such frank delight, 
 
 51 
 
It seemed to haunt me like an afterglow 
 
 From some great picture dreamed or seen long since. 
 
 One searches far and long for any glimpse 
 
 Of loveliness to invite a challenge rare, 
 
 And when one sees it, well, one must exclaim! 
 
 SIBYL. You have a pretty trick of speech, but why 
 You deign to waste your eloquence on me 
 I cannot fathom, unless you fear my power. 
 I never trust a woman's honeyed tongue, — 
 Still less I trust it when a man is near. 
 
 ORIEL. That kind of talk is good for baby minds. 
 
 SIBYL. You scoff— 'tis very easy — look through those 
 trees — 
 
 (Indicating Lucius and Sophia.) 
 Now would you trust a woman smiling so? 
 
 ORIEL (contracting her brows.) It is a brilliant day to 
 play a game, 
 I hope that she is on the winning side. 
 
 SIBYL. You speak your rival fair. Her counter-charms 
 Awake no terror in your jealous mind? 
 
 ORIEL (indignantly.) I pray you change that ugly mode 
 of speech. 
 What can you mean? 
 
 SIBYL. Just Lucius, that is all. 
 He was my friend, and only mine, before 
 The opening of this summer trip, and now 
 It seems I own a third in his esteem. 
 
 ORIEL (sharply.) You are his promised wife? 
 
 SIBYL. Oh, no, not that: 
 I only hold the keys to his past life; 
 I only know the reason that he walks 
 So soft amid the dipping women-kind 
 Who worship him and fall upon their knees 
 If he but throws to them a faded flower. 
 I only laugh when he goes on and on 
 Amid the conquering ruin that he makes: 
 An empire's sometimes won from women's sins. 
 
 ORIEL (slowly and emphatically.) An empire's oftener lost 
 from man's conceit. 
 He is too noble to live but to betray — 
 Even to-day he shunned the downward course. 
 And sought instead to find a path of fame. 
 We planned to climb Olympus side by side. 
 
 SIBYL. Which is a fancy way to fall in love. 
 You shall not win him from me; you can't; you shan'n't! 
 
 ORIEL. Oh, yes I will, but not to please myself, — 
 I do not want his love: I want his soul. 
 While you would tempt him to a vandal's course, 
 I would have him lead in honor's shining ranks. 
 
 SIBYL. Our course is marked — the duel has begun. 
 
ORIEL. A duel if you will — I am not .otn. 
 
 (A gong sounds for dinner and the brightly dressed guests 
 at the hotel begin to file past to the dining-room. Lucius and 
 Sophia approach.) 
 
 SIBYL. With such a stake, we fight unto the death. 
 
 ORIEL. Yes, you to drag him into the mire and I 
 To lift his spirit up: — unto the death! 
 
 LUCIUS (aside.) Unto the death:— great God! 
 
 CURiAIN. 
 
 ACT II. 
 A Few Days Later. 
 
 (Scene, a vineyard ana winery in Napa County, California. 
 In the distance a nigh hill with a white rock on its summit. 
 Beautiful sloping hills covered with growing grapes; big vats 
 for the fresh-made wine. Valeri and Lucius are discovered.) 
 
 LUCIUS. Signor Valeri, just let me talk with you 
 A bit. You seem to me to have the key 
 Of all success right here amid the grapes 
 Whose clusters green and black hang luscious, sweet, 
 Between the tender leaves. They're kissed by sun 
 As warm as that on Italy's hills and vales. 
 Now Joy, — elusive, sportive sprits, so shy, — 
 Is quite content to stay among your men. 
 They work wich vim and health as if they loved 
 The vine that gives so richly of its juice; 
 As if they loved the slopes on which it grew, 
 The air so balmy, fragrant with ozone. 
 The view of mountains nodding against the sky, 
 And this thing they make that sends its ripplmg cheer 
 So many miles across the sea and land; — 
 This wine that bubbles in those mighty vats, 
 Then, held within its bottles close confined, 
 Invites both dull and dreary to be glad. 
 
 VALERI. Oh yes, you'll find them pretty steady men, 
 But then 'tis not such fun to make the wine 
 As it is to drink it. Shall I pour the red or white 
 For you? 
 
 LUCIUS. The white and not too large a glass. 
 
 (Valeri pours some white wine into a glass and gives it to 
 Lucius.) 
 
 LUCIUS. It sparkles like champagne, — with topaz glint 
 It gleams just like a living thing, a voice 
 Of woman, clear and pure, and yet quite strong; 
 (Tastes it and makes a slight grimace.) 
 Although Signor, it still is very new. 
 And is a little bitter, cuts the tongue. 
 Perhaps the sugar is in the red. But I 
 Am here as courier for some City friends. 
 They wish to see this place and have a taste 
 
 53 
 
Of native wine just born from the growing grape. 
 I can rely on you? Your strongest, best? 
 Your name well-known in trade, I'll praise still more 
 Among the sick; I am a doctor. 
 
 VALERT (fawning.) Oh, thanks. 
 I'll stop all work and make this place a show 
 To please your guests — ?ome ladies, I presume? 
 Pietrc, Victor, here some choicest wine. 
 
 (Turning to Lucius.) 
 You might enjoy a tour around with me. 
 
 (Exit Lucius and Valeri. ) 
 
 (Enter Oriel, Sophia and Andrew. Oriel and Sophia are 
 dressed in attractive gowns of white linen, with flower- 
 trimmed hats and parasols.) 
 
 ANDREW. See here are chairs, a jolly place to rest: 
 I am sorry that I came, it's quite too warm: 
 One's comfort should be always first I think. 
 
 SOPHIA. Why I don't feel the heal ; I am so well 
 In this sweet spot. I'll stay the summer through, 
 It is a charming place and charming friends 
 By lucky chance are thrown together here. 
 
 ORIEI. (looking at her keenly.) Our doctor is a very 
 clever man, 
 I always fear that he will laugh at me. 
 
 SOPHIA (very vain) 1 know that he would never laugh 
 at me, 
 
 He is so gentle, kind and finely bred; 
 I wonder where he is? He promised me 
 A drive through all the vineyards here about. 
 
 ORIEL (nervously.) Is Sibyl coming too? 
 
 ANDREW (looking conscious.) Yes, she'll be here. 
 Without her we should have a sorry time. 
 She is the life and heart of every group. 
 Listen to the humming of the butterflies; 
 My hat I I'll catch one for my little niece. 
 
 (Makes a diving movement and spi-ings with his hat.) 
 A lovely creature, all gauzy, golden winged! 
 Ah, there you go, my birdie in the air, — 
 One, two three, — ■ 
 
 (Flings his hat on a supposed butterfly, then takes it off.) 
 The beast escaped me after all! 
 
 (Sits down again.) 
 This vigorous country life quite wears me out; 
 
 (Querously.) 
 I wonder why Sibyl is so late. Her presence 
 Would bring a breeze to fan this sultry heat. 
 
 ORIEL. With both of you I am quite out of place, 
 For no one comes for me. The doctor said 
 That if I chanced this way he might be here: 
 He has studied deeply the science of the vine, 
 
 54 
 
And could teach if he would from out his store 
 Of chemists' learning vast. 
 
 SOPHIA (hurriedly.) He'd have no time. 
 Whpve is your ancient friend, Emanuel? 
 
 ORIEL (patiently.) I cannot weary him with trivial talk. 
 
 ANDREW. I say! You've funny taste, he's almost, dead — 
 He's eighty quite or ninety-five or more, — 
 Ah. there she is! Miss Sibyl, take my chair! 
 
 (Enter Sibyl, looking very radiant in rose-colored chiffon 
 with a huge black parasol.) 
 
 SIBYL. How white you look in garments, snowy, pure, — 
 t should have worn the same. 
 
 ANDREW (to Sibyl.) The pink suits me! 
 I quite approve your color scheme and style: 
 They are topping swell, just what I like to see. 
 
 SIBYL. Here's Lucius with the man who makes the wine. 
 
 (Enter T ucius and Valeri. Valeri puts some glasses on the 
 table and begins to pour the wine.) 
 
 LLTCIUS. My friends. Signor Valeri welcomes you 
 To fountains of eternal youth, the source 
 Of all those limpid streams, without whose aid 
 The convivial board is dead, and pleasure's whirl 
 Is empty dust. Behold the ruby glow 
 I'pon the claret, — Miss Sophia, it is yours. 
 
 (Hands Sophia a glass.) 
 The white wine here has caught some ray of the sun 
 .When the King of Light gilds fair the morning sky. 
 Miss Oriel, this glass to you, it is like your hair. 
 
 (Gives her the glass of white wine.) 
 A darker red and sweeter taste for you. 
 Miss Sibyl. 
 
 (Gives her a glass of port.) 
 Valeri, Andrew, drink, the white with me. 
 
 (Sophia, coquetting with Lucius and drinking the wine.) 
 
 SOPHIA. If you give me the order I must obey. 
 
 ANDREW (drinking.) I'm happier than I have ever been 
 before. 
 
 I think I'll stay and make this place my home. 
 I'd want a bride as well as grapes and wine, — 
 I might grow sturdy with all three to aid! 
 Come, Lucius, you agree with me, old chap, 
 You too might take a wife and settle here. 
 
 SOPHIA. I'd be content with Napa all my life 
 And never ask to see my home again. 
 
 SIBYL (mockingly.) And you, Miss Oriel, have you no 
 other wish? 
 
 (Oriel drinks her wine slowly and steadily, puts the glass 
 down, then looks keenly at Sibyl.) 
 
 ORIEL. Oh, no, I would explore a larger field, 
 Would hunt the buffalo on Western plains, 
 
 35 
 
Or go a whaling to the northern seas. 
 
 I leave the moment that the interest lags; 
 
 I want to see our doctor rise to fame, 
 
 A discoverer in the field of health, to save 
 
 His science from destroying ignorance. 
 
 LUCIUS. So many give advice, I am quite dumb. 
 
 ANDREW (still drinking.) Sweet Sibyl knows the bride 
 I've fixed upon, — ■ 
 
 Why should we wait? I'm ready now, let's tell 
 Our friends our hope, our love, — my beauty, you will? 
 
 SIBYL (drinking the wine and growing excited.) I thought 
 the secret safe, but now it is out, — 
 Why yes, it is true, he loves me like a swain. 
 It seems we are the first in love, who next? 
 There Lucius waits alone, while two contend 
 To win his heart. He stands between, a stone. 
 
 SOPHIA. A stone was never known to smile like that. 
 
 (Valeri refills the glasses.) 
 
 Valeri. I am at a loss to know which way to look, 
 Which lady shall I toast? My mind's confused; 
 Beauty on every side; it's like my grapes — • 
 Each vine with rich, luxuriant bloom out does 
 The other. 'Tis hard to pick where all excel. 
 
 ORIEL (holding her glass high above her head and rising 
 proudly.) 
 
 There is no need of choice if you count me one: 
 I'll give a toast to others' married joy. 
 Two men, two women and a fifth to sing 
 Their triumph. None tells so well of happy hearts 
 As she to whom all happiness is dead. 
 A stranger to the sound of wedding bells, 
 Unknown to rapture, bliss or sweet content 
 Of love, outside its gates, I am fitted best 
 To peal forth its praise. Now come all drink with me 
 To our friends betrothed! How long they've waited to find 
 And answer to their call for love! Alone, 
 The battered spirit beats against itself, 
 Its finest fancies waking but an echo 
 From out the vacant air that clothes the hills. 
 Exhausted in the dreary solitude, 
 With wings that break against the cage of self, 
 The stumbling soul despairing sinks. But look! 
 From out the mist a face appears, there sounds 
 A human voice in place of echo wild. 
 Where one dwelt with his shadow for a friend, 
 Now two combined unite and are one again. 
 Like moonlight turned to silver in the sea. 
 Like rose-leaves when they fall on velvet moss, 
 Like music when it beats upon the strings 
 Of our inmost hearts, and plays a chord sublime, . 
 
 56 
 
So man and woman meet in mystic bond. 
 
 Now drinlv with me! Witli Hymen for our toast! 
 
 (She drains the glass, while the others, half hypnotised, 
 with astonishment, drink after her. Sibyl, all of a sudden, 
 tosses her empty glass on the ground, smashing it and 
 exclaiming in half delirious rage.) 
 
 SIBYL. You cannot play your fiendish tricks on me. 
 I see your game, you witch with golden tongue. 
 You say you do not love our Lucius here, 
 You want instead his soul. You wish to see him 
 Beneath you, quite abased, within your power. 
 And then who knows what ruin you will work. 
 Or how wiixiin your grasp, he'll go to hell? 
 You wear that dazzling garment snowy white, — • 
 I don't believe your soul's the same. It is 
 Perhaps a mask to cover a blackened heart, 
 An impure life whose past cannot be breathed! 
 
 ORIEL (calmly.) Andrew, you will respond? i gave a 
 toast, 
 I wait to hear the answer from your lips. 
 
 ANDREW. How should I know what I am io say to you? 
 I feel so faint, — another glass of wine, — 
 I'm sick, my head is swimming round and round, — 
 I fear that Sibyl does not take to you, — 
 You are so strange, vour talk is really rum. 
 Ah, thanks, Valeri, that wine is strong, but good. 
 
 SOPHIA (to Lucius.) It is dreadful that such things are 
 said out loud. 
 
 Let's take a walk and let them fight without us. 
 Now vulgar! J would never quarrel so. 
 
 LUCIUS (his brow darkening.) A woman's quarrel is the 
 worst of all. 
 
 When women fall their depth is lower far 
 That ours. They pull each other's hair and scratch, 
 And scream, and sling their mud with easy force. 
 Such conduct well befits a City den, 
 But here amid a loveliness complete 
 Of Nature in a bridal mood, it's hate 
 Uncloaked, as black as night, that shocks our eyes. 
 How dare you, Sibyl, use such language vile? 
 Miss Oriel, you sink in my esteem; you take 
 Her insults without a frown, a word, a look; 
 You are so calm you seem to like such talk. 
 To be at home for touch of vipers' tongues. 
 Now both of you stand back, I am host to-day. 
 
 (He steps into the center of the stage, and with a violent 
 motion, thrusts Sibyl back with his left hand, while with his 
 right, he hurls Oriel to the other side of the stage until she 
 staggers against a tree for support.) 
 
 57 
 
ORIEL (with a cry like a wounded animal.) Coward to 
 hurt a woman without defense: 
 You do not understand, — you play the brute. 
 
 SIBYL (to Lucius.) You conquered! See her shiver there 
 so pale. 
 She shrieked in fear and cowered at your touch. 
 
 ANDREW. I cannot stay, the scene has worn me out. 
 Sibyl, will you come witn me, my dear. 
 As my pi-omised wife you must obey me now. 
 I shan't be pleased if you lose your temper so. 
 My wife must have soft manners like my own. 
 
 SIBYL. All right, sweetheart, I'll go with you, this once. 
 
 (Exit Andrew and Sibyl.) 
 
 SOPHIA (whimpering.) No one seems to care foi- me to- 
 day. 
 
 And T planned for such a merry time! oh, dear! 
 The wine has made me sick, I am all unstrung. 
 Doctor, you are not mad with me? 
 
 LUCIUS. No, no. 
 I simply hate myself and women-kind. 
 
 VALERI (to Sophia.) Come tnis way awhile. T will show 
 you round, 
 The view of all our work will do you good. 
 
 (Exit Sophia and Valeri.) 
 
 LUCIUS. I t-eem to fail in my quest for something rare. 
 The day that opened with such hope has waned 
 In ugly wrath, a broil inflamed by wine. 
 I'd rather die than be like others, base, 
 A slave to passion, pinioned by my hate. 
 My life condemned to ceaseless grind of rage; 
 And yet my effort to be something more. 
 To live within the light of men's respect, 
 And. win renown from crowds compelled to bend 
 Before superior power, but ends like this. 
 It seems that no one wants my higher self. 
 While many try in vain to touch my heart. 
 
 ORIEL. You speak like that? Just now you seemed 
 eclipsed 
 
 In rage like that which you condemn, despise. 
 You say that no one seeks your higher self- 
 Alas, you hide it from the kindest eyes. 
 Although I prayed that you would follow me 
 And scale with flying thoughts the heights of fame. 
 The dome of mind expanding ever up, 
 I see you play with fire, beguile with flame 
 A simple heart, unskilled in mental fence. 
 And then towards me you played the cruel boor, 
 You dared to place your hand upon my arm. 
 And bruise my flesh,— and bruise my spirit too. 
 How strange that savagery contests in you 
 
 58 
 
The higher aim; 
 
 Ll^CIUS (ahiiost shrieking with pain.) A boor? What do 
 \ oi! mean? 
 
 ORIEL. Yon must admit it is your lower self 
 n^hat drags yon down, for sin is from within. 
 Corruption is born in our own hearts alone: 
 We cannot fall but with our own consent. 
 
 LIXIUS. I tried to save you from her evil tongue; 
 You seemed too mild, too sweet when she attacked 
 Your virtue. I wanted to arouse disdain. 
 Contempt, resentment, righteous rage in you. 
 I acted but in your defense, — for you, 
 Because I think you pure and true and high, 
 Because I knew no other way to clear 
 Your fan^e before an enemy so fierce. 
 And for reward you call me brute and boor! 
 Oh say you did not mean it, please, oh please I 
 
 ORIEL. My mind is clear. I meant it then and now. 
 I needed no defense from you or her. 
 Such slander is too far below my path 
 For me to condescend to hear one word. 
 And though you may have wished me well, you chose 
 The manner of a savage for a proof. 
 I still am puzzled more and more to see 
 A brain like yours without the lamp of soul. 
 So rich in science and ideas, yet poor 
 In that which is the beating heart of both, 
 That essence fine, like filmy silken thread, 
 Which runs divine in knowledge through and through. 
 You are a study of our modern times. 
 And yet I am so sorry you are sad! 
 
 LUCIUS. Sorry? I think you have a heart of ice, 
 Or none at all. Your arguments precise 
 Cut through my ache and pain like burning frost. 
 Your mind as cold as steel is like a blade 
 As fine as those we surgeons use. but fit 
 As well to do a butcher's clumsy work. 
 It would not serve I fear to cut a grape, — 
 Too keen, it is out of place on these soft downs. 
 You stand there like a star from evening strayed. 
 So cold and brilliant glancing at our warmth. 
 The drowsy day deriding. The wine, the fruit. 
 The glow of color on the hills, you chill. 
 A contrast without doubt to lead me on 
 Where already I have roamed.' You know I love you! 
 
 ORIEL. Must that be added to this day of pain. 
 Already shrieking with the tempter's voice. 
 Repulsive with the invitation to sin? 
 You think that deaf to blows, to love I'll yield. 
 Become a thing that's bought by a caress? 
 
 59 
 
LI^CIUS. No, no, believe me, I love you, love you, love you! 
 I first must break your back of stubborn pride. 
 And will congealed by saintly solitude. 
 I've set my heart on you, I shall not fail, 
 I cannot fail, for I was born to win 
 Some fort not won before. Say that the fort 
 Is just a woman good and wise and fair, 
 Is there a greater prize so worth the fighc? 
 Now look at me with all your eyes, your soul — ■ 
 You see that I am very strong, intense. 
 My will of iron never yet has bent. 
 I'll take an oath on every sacred thing 
 That keeps you floating above the common herd, 
 To be a victor loved, adored by you. 
 I'll banish gloom forever now and fly 
 With you to esctasy and new-born life. 
 
 ORIEL. My ear detects an accent of the truth; 
 You mean, perhaps, just half you say, the rest. 
 Concealed down deep within the dividing myth 
 That screens each human mind from its nearest kin. 
 Reveals your groping for what's new and odd. 
 You wish to conquer me: would that content you? 
 Or once your own should I not be within 
 The prison of the vanquished, your slave despised? 
 
 LUCIUS. Your mind, so subtle otherwise, delights 
 In ugly terms. You conjure up such ghosts! (shuddering.) 
 You don't believe I want you for my wife. 
 That I revere your stainless heart and life? 
 You spoke just now of love, the god that binds 
 A man and woman, creating bliss from pain. 
 And when you see that very love spring forth 
 To greet you, you answer with a shy recoil! 
 
 ORIEL. To conquer me would be to gain my love. 
 To touch, control the finest part of me. 
 That one unseen and tiny spot of brain 
 Where glows a light that streams through every vein 
 And gives a meaning to my breath of life. 
 Sometimes on mountain peaks through distant haze, 
 I seem to feel the wafted, ethereal love 
 Of one whose thoughts illumine all my own. 
 That heavenly hope of yearning trembles faint, 
 Just praying for a sweet reply. And then 
 Descends the curtain of the denser sky, 
 A thickness falls between my dream and me; — 
 No whispering voice can pierce unto my soul. 
 
 LUCIUS. My voice is not a whisper, — I call out loud, 
 I love you, — I who never yet have bowed 
 To woman's charms. Devotion instead of scorn 
 Now holds my heart of man, before untamed, 
 Oriel, — you wonder-woman, — come to me! 
 
 60 
 
ORIEL. A little while. My footsteps falter yet — 
 I know the beauty of your glorious mind; 
 I see the beauty of your face, carved straight 
 And clean, an artist's perfect work of bronze, 
 The form that he would give for a hero's mold, 
 A conqueror's statue, bold yet not untrue. 
 I think you want to love me with all the old, 
 Romantic fervor of a chivalrous age. 
 But something still forbids us to be one; 
 Is it that I fear the leaping brute in you, 
 Or that no voice is quivering in my nerves. 
 No inner counsel urging me to yield? 
 And yet from some far source of pity deep, 
 My bosom beats with love for you, my dear! 
 Lucius, — I give you every chance to win! 
 
 LUCIUS (falling on his knees at her feet.) 
 You crown me with the magic wreath of hope. 
 T came here with a riddle, anguish-tossed. 
 i>. :\, my study, all I tried to be 
 
 Seemed vam. My will rebellious pined to burst 
 The bonds of duties petty, foolish, slow, 
 I longed for the chance of an earlier, stronger time. 
 Where I could fight great battles, live or die 
 Within the aura of a mighty fate. 
 And now I see I only yearned for love, 
 For you, the great white star I was to meet. 
 I have the chance to win, oh, never fear, 
 No king or potentate or death itself, 
 Shall hinder me. My love, my very love! 
 
 ORIEL (bends over him and kisses him on the forehead.) 
 At least together we can climb, my friend. 
 
 (Enter Valeri, Sibyl, Sophia, Andrew and Emanuel. They 
 all start at the tableau of Lucius kneeling.) 
 
 SIBYL. What foolish play is this? 
 
 SOPHIA. Why did I go? 
 
 ANDREW. Another wedding after all, it seems. 
 
 VALERI. On fire, love gallops with my new-made wine. 
 
 EMANUEL (glancing at the sun as its rays strike on a 
 white rock on the top of a hill in the distance.) 
 How thick the underbrush on yonder hill! 
 It clusters round the base in fond embrace, 
 But never grows up near the naked top. 
 You see how bare the summit stands alone. 
 The white rock gleaming in the sinking sun. 
 
 SIBYL (with a shriek of rage and pain.) 
 The meshes of the curse have caught him in! 
 
 CURTAIN. 
 
 61 
 
ACT III. 
 Two Weeks Later. 
 
 (Scene, the town of Santa Rosa in the interior of Cali- 
 fornia. A brilliant summer day, with a flower festival and 
 fair in progress. A small wooden church in the foreground, 
 very primitive except for the large bell in the small steeple. 
 An air of bustle. Indians with finely woven baskets to sell. 
 A colored brass band playing rag-time. Enter Sibyl and 
 Sophia, the former dressed as a bride.) 
 
 SOPHIA. It was so good of you to pick me out, 
 To stand beside you on your wedding day. 
 It is a compliment, — -you honor me, 
 While Oriel, uninvited, stays outside. 
 Just fancy how she aches with jealous pain 
 Alone at home, while we are here to make 
 A day of revelry! The festival 
 Just suits our mood, — if only Lucius could 
 Be here, we should have a perfectly happy time. 
 
 SIBYL. Don't fret, perhaps he will join us after all. 
 He knows the hour and said he might be here. 
 Almost my brother, for years a trusted friend, 
 He will not desert me on this day of days. 
 My relatives are dead or far away, — 
 I have but him to wish me bridal joy. 
 
 SOPHIA (puzzled.) Suppose that Oriel will not let him 
 come ? 
 
 You said you feared her power over him; 
 1 fear it too; he is with her day and night, 
 While still he seems to have some love for me. 
 It is such a tease and p\izzle! — what can he mean? 
 
 SIBYL. You know but little of the ways of men, 
 He flirts with her to pique your pride a bit. 
 My luck is great in winning for my own, 
 A man like Andrew, steadfast, sure and true. 
 Who loves but me and me alone, with all 
 His heart. No fear that he will cast his eye 
 On Oriel or you or any other girl! 
 While Lucius, — well, I've known him many years. 
 And know of course his little faults, the dear! 
 With such a handsome face and such an air, 
 A manner so magnetic and refined, 
 It is no wonder, he is a trifle vain. 
 I don't like your rival, so I'll work for you. 
 And throw my weight of friendship in your scale. 
 It is better he should marry soon, he wastes 
 His time in fooling with the dazzled moths 
 Of fashion buzzing near him all the time. 
 His wife should be of course of high degree, 
 Like you a woman of the choicest rank, 
 
 62 
 
'I'o shine among the learned men he knows, 
 Preside at banquets where he leads the toast, 
 And dance with him on polished ball-room floors. 
 
 SOPHIA (flinging her arms round Sibyl and kissing her.) 
 You are my best and only friend, my love. 
 What can I do to show you gratitude? 
 To be so kind to-day, when yourself a bride. 
 All thought should be for you! Had I your face 
 I would have no fear at all of Lucius' faith. 
 Sibyl, you are bewitching in that gown, — 
 
 SIBYL (vehemently.) This gown? Oh, no! I hate the 
 color white. 
 
 But Andrew begged that I should wear it once. 
 He is right. A bride should don the virgins garb, 
 The day she changes to a wife. But white — 
 
 (Enter Andrew and Lucius.) 
 
 ANDREW (excitedly.) We are an hour too early, eager 
 both 
 
 To ge*^ it over with the greatest speed. 
 We shall have to wait in the hotel near by. 
 The flower procession moves along this way. 
 
 SIBYL. You and Sophia go ahead, we'll come 
 Right after you. The heat fatigues me so! 
 I am slow, while my bridesmaid trips with nimble tread. 
 
 (Andrew and Sophia walk ahead obediently, and soon dis- 
 appear.) 
 
 SIBYL (looking tragically at Lucius.) 
 How can T live and bear your cruel scorn? 
 So calm and cold, indifferent, brutal man. 
 You would see me die or even worse than die. 
 And take no step to save my ebbing life! 
 I have worked and worked for you and our common cause; 
 With the venom of a snake, a tiger's fury. 
 Without reward I fought. With only hate 
 To spur me on, I struggled inch by inch, 
 To be supreme above the coward race. 
 Whose insolence of birth would crush us down. 
 I kept the count of all your triumphs, too. 
 As if they were my own. You played the game 
 So high, and strode so firmly along the edge 
 Of deadly danger from these pale foes of ours, 
 I worshipped you. The world seemed made for you: 
 I dreamed I saw you in the chair of state, 
 The sceptre in your hand, while on your brow 
 The diamond of success so bravely shone. 
 No eye was strong enough to face its glitter. 
 And now you are captive to a pious maid. 
 With hair of straw and silly, flowery speech, 
 While my own knell is sounding from this church. 
 So soon to bind me to a man I loathe! 
 
Oh, how this life has juggled with our hearts, 
 Dread Satan surely works to torture us — • 
 I am a fated wretch who dares not love. 
 Or I would shriek my ardent lOve for you. 
 It is not too late, there's time, — oh, call me back 
 From this outrageous union with a fool! 
 I will grovel at your feet, surrender all 
 I thought to subjugate: Oh, call me back! 
 
 LUCIUS. You have made your own career, and now re- 
 pent. 
 
 I did not choose for you this thorny path 
 Of marriage with a weakling whom you betrayed. 
 It was your wish to mingle with the white, — 
 And now you cannot bear to pay the cost! 
 Your ambition would not let you marry me, 
 It seemed to you a backward step to join 
 Your colored blood with mine; and now you faint 
 When victory is in sight! You look most fair, — 
 Now try to be content, — my pity lives. 
 
 SIBYL. You still can justify your every act; 
 I am not skilled in argument like you. 
 To make my course for all its wrong look right. 
 Under your contempt, my dark skin writhes. 
 But you to me are perfect as you are; 
 If ali the blood of Africa's savage tribes 
 Ran in murderous channels through your veins, 
 I still would hold you fairer than the fair. 
 The greatest man I ever chanced to know. 
 Instead, one tiny drop of Indian blood 
 Has tinged the white and made it glow like fire, 
 Made you a leader, chieftain to compel 
 Subservience from every race that walks the world. 
 To marry where you conquer is not shame. 
 If not my ajbect self, then take Sophia. 
 
 LUCIUS. Your jealousy of Oriel knows no bounds. 
 Absurd to think that I would yield to her. 
 She is a young and inexperienced girl! 
 
 SIBYL. Nonsense! Does she know the secret of your 
 birth? 
 
 LUCIUS. Why no, but that would make no difference, 
 now,— 
 Her view is large, — she likes me for my brain. 
 
 SIBYL. I fear you will founder yet through self-conceit; 
 You take no count of others' prejudice, 
 And are too sure you are rated at your worth. 
 Take care, take care; she would spurn you like a dog 
 If I should tell her who your grandam was. 
 
 LUCIUS (anxiously.) You would not tell her? Not yet! 
 Not yet! 
 
 SIBYL. Why not? 
 
 64 
 
If in the social vortex, 1 must die, 
 
 First let me try to rescue you. the man 
 
 Whom Destiny has picked for greater things 
 
 Than tender yielding to a woman's love. 
 
 And if, like me, she is marked for death and doom. 
 
 What does it reck when Lucius is the stake? 
 
 LUCIUS. You desperate, bitter woman, what would you do? 
 
 (The bell of the church begins to ring.) 
 
 SIBYL. How can you ask? The bell begins to ring. 
 Once more, I beg you, take my heart to yours. 
 Escape with me to other lands and hopes. 
 
 LUCIUS ( coldly.) Your Andrew and Sophia wait for us. 
 
 (Enter Andrew and Sophia.) 
 
 ANDREW. Why, h,ow you lag behind! It is almost time 
 For the blessed tying of our nuptial knot. 
 Shall we enter now? The bell is ringing loud. 
 
 SIBYL. Why yes, no need to wait a moment more. 
 
 LUCIUS. I won't go in, but will await you here. 
 
 (Sibyl, Andrew and Sophia disappear into the church. ( 
 
 LUCIUS (alone.) Oh God, if God there is, now pity me. 
 The road before me lies so dark and sooty. 
 No light breaks forth to guide me to the right. 
 Uncertain, weak, I fast am losing faith 
 In my own self! What am I striving for? 
 A power won by force and black deceit. 
 Or will sweet happiness throw to me a kiss? 
 
 (Enter Oriel.) 
 
 ORIEL. You here, my friend? I am so glad to see you! 
 I could not miss the flower festival. 
 So came alone. 
 
 LUCIUS. What pleasure rare for me 
 To show you all the sights of the gala town! 
 I wish that you were in the flower parade. 
 No other blossom could so play the queen. * 
 
 ORIEL. You must not flatter me; I have no beauty; 
 I am sure I should make a very sorry queen. 
 Oh, look, the darktown colored band comes here; 
 How bright and gay and full of mirth they are! 
 
 (The band passes with a number of negro women in the 
 rear.) 
 
 LUCIUS. Do you like the colored folk? There are many 
 here. 
 This negro band and a camp of Indians, too. 
 
 ORIEL. I would not do them any harm, poor things, 
 I like to see them light of heart, content. 
 Their rulers must have something of a task 
 To check such ignorance and strength combined. 
 
 LUCIUS. Their rulers! You mean the whites? 
 
 ORIEL. Why yes. Whom else? 
 
 LUCIUS (jerking out each word with difficulty.) Sometimes. 
 
 65 
 
the-half-bred-Indian-rules-the-best; 
 
 No- woman-cast s-a-more-magnetic-spell — 
 
 Than-a-lovely-octoroon. You look disdain! 
 
 ORIEL. I hate the thought. You seem to think that charm 
 Can come from fungus of the under-earth. 
 You are wrong! Our strength should be so pure, so high, — 
 
 (Lucius turns nervously seeing the door of the church open.) 
 
 LUCIUS. Miss Oriel, come this way, there is more to see 
 The other side of town. 
 
 (Exit Lucus and Oriel. Andrew Sibyl and Sophia come out 
 of the church.) 
 
 SOPHIA. Why, Lucius iias gone! 
 
 ANDREW. No doubt he is at the hotel waiting us. 
 
 SIBYL. Go on, Sophia dear, we'll follow you. 
 I want a word with Andrew quite alone. 
 
 (Exit Sophia.) 
 
 ANDREW. My love, I tremble still with bridal joy. 
 You kissed me only once, I long for home 
 To press my lips again to your warm cheek. 
 Old Venus was quite plain compared with you. 
 My beautiful, my own Sibyl sweet. 
 
 SIBYL (roughly.) Oh, stop that foolish talk, it makes me 
 ill. 
 
 We soon are going home to meet your friends. 
 Your friends in the best society you boast; 
 Will they applaud your choice? 
 
 ANDREW. Why, yes, of course. 
 The very passers-by all gaze on you 
 With admiration. 
 
 SIBYL. They like brunettes, it seems! 
 See that negro mammy standing there — 
 My great grandmother might have been her twin. 
 
 ANDREW. Why, Sibyl, you have lost your senses quite! 
 
 SIBYL. Oh, no, my friend, my dupe, my husband white! 
 1 am an octoroon! My hand is exposed. 
 And you are ruined before your little world. 
 I vowed I would enslave a pure white man, 
 Would see his heart consumed for love of me; 
 That I would make him wed me in a church, 
 I have fulfilled my oath, now you can go 
 To any shame you choose. I live alone 
 As I have always done, — I want no man. 
 Now let the scandal blaze as blaze it will — 
 It is only you who will be hurt. 
 
 ANDREW. My wife! 
 Almost on the altar stairs you stand and say 
 These odious things! You creature of the grime,— 
 The law shall track you down for this day's work. 
 I am not strong like you, you seized your chance. 
 And played upon my feeble health, you fiend. 
 
What shall I do? I'll call for Lucius' aid — 
 But stop — he is your friend — his skin is dark — 
 Perhaps, — where are we now? he too — 
 
 SIBYIv. Is black. 
 We have had a pleasant summer, Andrew, dear I 
 
 ANDREW. Sophia and Oriel, they are white, poor giiis. 
 What Bhall I do to save them from his grasp? 
 I shall run back into the church and ring 
 The bell to sound the alarm through all the streets. 
 What danger hovers round us all out here : 
 
 SIBYL (jeering.) Hurrah, my Andrew, you act the crazy 
 man! 
 
 ANDREW (more calmly.) But surely for to-day you'll stay 
 with me? 
 
 SIBYL (derisively.) You cringe! I might have known 
 you would, poor cur! 
 
 Your plea is unavailing. Who answers mine? 
 \ suffocate with rage and hate and pain, 
 And no one cares a jot. You do the same. 
 Why should the accident of birth condemn me 
 To suffer, suffer, suffer, all the time. 
 While you, without my beauty, heart or brain, 
 Cry out for joy like babies for their pap? 
 It is unjust! T^^nfair! I'nkind! I'll break 
 The awful, cruel bonds that tie me down, 
 And never care how great the sacrifice. 
 Go tell your story to those simpering fools; 
 I will take a walk to cool my burning head. 
 Before I leave this iiorrid town to-night. 
 
 (Exit Sibyl. A portion of the flower possession passes 
 while Andrew gazes distractedly. There are a beating of tom- 
 toms and drums, a shrieking of Indians, the loud playing of 
 the colored band and other confusing noises. The Indians 
 who are intoxicated begin to fight. A general fracas ensues. 
 The sky becomes overcast, and looks as if a thunder-storm 
 were imminent. Enter Sophia looking distracted.) 
 
 SOPHIA. What is the trouble? I am so frightened here. 
 Why where has Sibyl gone? And Lucius, too? 
 Andrew, you are pale! 
 
 ANDREW. Oh, worse than pale! Keep cool! 
 It is too terrible to tell, — don't fear — 
 We can escape, I hope, it's not too late — 
 This town just swarms with horrid colored folk; — 
 They plan to kill us all — 
 
 (Sophia shrieks; the confusion in the street increases.) 
 
 SOPHIA. Won't Lucius help? 
 
 ANDREW (seizing her arm.) Beware of him! You don't 
 know what you do! 
 
 He is not white, — part black, a giant, too. 
 He wants to make a fool of Oriel and you. 
 
 67 
 
We must leave this place. 
 
 SOPHIA (offended.) What nonsense you do talk! 
 I don't believe you, but if he were a moor, 
 I still would think him perfect as he is. 
 
 (Enter Lucius, looking very much scared and bewildered.) 
 
 LUCIUS. Is Oriel here? (peering around.) Oh, no. She 
 must be lost. 
 
 ANDREW. She was not invited to the wedding here. 
 
 LUCIUS. I know; I met her walking round alone, 
 And went with her to see the flower parade. 
 Some drunken ruffians fell into a fight; 
 A riot ensued; we all were huddled close. 
 And then she disappeared, I don't know where. 
 And Sibyl, — Andrew, your bride? 
 
 ANDREW. Has gone from me. 
 But first she told me all the ghastly plot. 
 That vou and she have worked to ruin us. 
 
 LU(:iUS. I worked no plot! 
 
 SOPHIA. Has Sibyl left her groom? 
 
 ANDREW. Yes, left with curses on her dusky lips. 
 
 LUCIUS (with a crp of pain.) She will find my Oriel and 
 reveal the truth! 
 
 SOPHIA. Why, it is nothing to be a little dark, 
 To me it is a bagatelle, a grace. 
 You are like a royal prince of Hindostan! 
 
 LUCIUS (aside.) If she thought that! 
 
 SOPHIA. What are we going to do? 
 
 (The fracas in the streets continues: there is a good deal 
 of angry shouting; then the police arrive, and gradually quell 
 the crowd.) 
 
 LUCIUS. No woman is safe in a street like this to-day. 
 Andrew, you take Sophia to the hotel; 
 Meanwhile, I'll look for Oriel and Sibyl both; 
 You need not worry; a friend of years, I'll take 
 The bride in hand and bring her to your arms. 
 
 (Exit Sophia and Andrew. The crowd disperses.) 
 
 LUCIUS. What next to do? If Sibyl keeps her word, 
 She'll fight my love in duel to the death. 
 Then I must put the armor on and plunge 
 Into the ranks of steel, defying all. 
 If only Oriel were really quite my own. 
 With mounting courage I would victory gain 
 On every field the prophets chose for me. 
 My father's dream of conquest should come true, — 
 And yet he'd say it was weakness to want her so! 
 
 (Enter a crowd of Indians in a bedecked flower wagon, on 
 the top of which Oriel sits enthroned like a queen. She 
 waves her hands brightly to Lucius and dismounts.) 
 
 ORIEL (to the Indians.) Thank you for the ride, — so many, 
 many thanks! 
 
(They bow to her solemnly and leave.) 
 
 ORIEL. It was quite funny to be lost like that' 
 T was jostled by the crazy, drunken crowd, 
 And parted from your side. I was dismayed, 
 I'ntil the Indians picked me up: I had 
 No fear, but begged that they would bring me back 
 To this spot from which I knew I could find my way 
 They are so droll and solemn, yet quite kind. 
 Were most polite, — 
 
 LUCIUS. I almost died with fear,— 
 Knew in your absence what you were to me; 
 The hour seemed an eternal agony — 
 
 (The street is deserted and it is growing dark. He throw.s 
 his arms around her and attempts to kiss her.) 
 
 ORIEL (freeing herself with a violent effort.) 1 said ihat 
 you might have a chance to win, 
 I did not say that you had won; and though 
 With some strange love I never felt before, 
 I love your soul, your embrace but gives me pain. 
 Stand back! I feel as if the thunder yearned 
 To wrap us round in grisly, leaden shroud. 
 We stand so near, yet still it seems to me. 
 The whole black world rolls past between our eyes. 
 As if not you and I were standing here, 
 But fleets and armies living now in us. 
 My hungry heart is eager for your love. 
 And yet I cannot answer you; some swirl 
 Of unknown darkness sweeps our beings in, 
 All tender hopes forbidding. What curtain hangs 
 Like funeral pall between your heart and mine? 
 
 LUCIUS. Why would you wrench from me the bitter 
 truth? 
 
 If all between us were as clear as day. 
 If I should tell you my inmost secret life. 
 Would that confession help me in your eyes? 
 
 ORIEL. There is a secret, then! The truth of course. 
 How can 1 love a shadow, a man obscure 
 Who hides from me some fact towards which I grope? 
 
 LL"'^CIUS. My father w^as a man of learning wide; 
 Like me a doctor but of far more renown. 
 With deepest pity for our country's wound. 
 He sought a healing remedy, and chose 
 A wife like Minnie Haha, — you know the tale. 
 She had a drop of bright red Indian blood. 
 That rendered her a beauty rare as proud. 
 My father thought that I, their only child. 
 Trained with every care that science knew. 
 Would in myself combine the highest type 
 Of native aborigines and whites. 
 He destined me for conquest step by step; 
 
 69 
 
His ghost still goads me on and on and sees 
 
 No limit to the heights I should attain. 
 
 (Sadly.) He did not seem to think of human love. 
 
 ORIEL (very tenderly.) My Lucius! So brave: So true! 
 Have 1 been unkind? 
 
 So burdened with a weight you did not choose. 
 So sad. my dearest dear, I weep for you! 
 With all your gifts, your charm, your knightly power. 
 To be but science's cold experiment! 
 
 LUCIUS (with glowing eyes.) You do not despise my 
 Indian blood? 
 
 ORIEL. Oh, no! 
 
 LUCIUS. Then all the wrong and pain are gone, quite 
 dead; 
 
 Like glorious morning coming from the night; 
 Like flowers that burst their calyx prison green, 
 And every Spring that all the ages through. 
 Has broken up the winter's ice,andflung 
 Profuse it's wealth of love to woo the world. 
 You come to dissipate my gloom! Fair Oriel! 
 
 ORIEL (gravely.) I come as one of those you were born 
 to win. 
 
 Your love of me is love of something hard 
 Of conquest. That is the darkness which I feared. 
 It is not a man and woman with hearts that yearn, 
 Who stand here grimly face to face, so sheer; 
 But two .great thoughts opposed, your father's dream 
 And my old pride of puie and noble race. 
 Could 1 link my blood with yours and let 
 My children bear the weight too much for you? 
 Oh, Lucius! it is so hard to wound you so, — 
 Those questions all aside, if some sharp voice 
 Should urge me to your arms, compelling all, 
 I would risk the future's "woe with perfect faith. 
 But no; my very depths can find for you 
 Compassion, friendship, tender, real, — no more. 
 
 LUCIUS. And oh, my God, I cannot live without you! 
 Although your words like vitriol acid cut, 
 I am not so blind as not to see your point. 
 Ambition's taint has dyed my dearest aim, — 
 When I would soar with you on pinions far. 
 And fly towards utter freedom crowned with love, 
 I still am held in bondage like a slave. 
 The fettered creature of a father's curse. 
 Pursuing devils challenge me to fight, 
 And whisper victory to my grieved heart 
 That wants a sweet fulfillment of desire 
 Against your breast. My Oriel, you are first. 
 With all my might I'll crush this nightmare imp, 
 And dedicate myself to you, my queen! 
 
 70 
 
ORIEI^. Oh, do not plead this way with me, my dear, 
 Or I shall wish that we had never met. 
 
 LI'CIUS. I could wish and wish and yet unwish that too; 
 In these brief weeks of summer's alchemy, 
 Our lives have grown into a tangled hedge. 
 Now can they ever grow apart again? 
 The trailing poisoned ivy at our roots 
 Has clutched us in its killing grip. I fear 
 You do not know how deadly Sibyl hates. 
 
 ORIEL. Ker anger is against my love for you; 
 It will ex])ire when she knows that you are free. 
 
 LUCITTS. You err; her terror is your spell foi' me; 
 Once tell her that you tower here above me. 
 To all my pleading deaf, a critic sharp 
 Of all I tried and strove and hoped to be — 
 And your precious life would hang by a slender thread. 
 Are you made of stone? Ycu do not tremble yet! 
 Suppose that I outraged by your contempt. 
 Should join with Sibyl in a vengeance chase? 
 What would you do? 
 
 ORIEL. Is this a threat I hear? 
 A man so great he could make sport of kings. 
 Would hurt a woman once he claimed to love? 
 
 LUCIUS. Oh, no, I only tried to prove you strong. 
 To what dark cavern have we strayed, dear heart? 
 I see no exit in its murky light. 
 We wander, wander, far from home, or hope. 
 And stumble on the broken bits of rock. 
 I came here longing for a thrill sublime. 
 To lift me from the common course of men. 
 I touch it, and it uies from me again, 
 Absorbed into the moonbeams' fickle light. 
 It melts into a vastness unknown to me. 
 But oh my life, my love, I cannot sink 
 Again into the petty groove I left. 
 
 (The storm breaks and the thunder begins to roar above 
 their heads. Oriel shrinks against the fence of the church, 
 holding out her hands to him half in pity, half in benediction.) 
 
 LUCIUS (uncovering his head.) You do not yield, then 
 one of us must die! 
 
 CURTAIN. 
 
 FOURTH ACT. 
 
 A few days later. 
 
 (Scene, a thicket at the base of Mt. St. Helena. The moun- 
 tain, which is thickly wooded, stands sheer against a twilight 
 sky, fast deepening into evening, with a few stars coming out. 
 Emanuel is discovered seated on a fallen, vine-covered log.) 
 
 EMANUEL (musing.) This valley's beauty with the woods 
 combined, 
 
 71 
 
Is balm to rest my tired, fading eyes: "^ 
 
 Strange, that towards the evening of my life, ' 
 
 My ancient enemy should look so mild,— 
 
 That subtlest foe s,weet Nature, beams on me. 
 
 And I succumb, succumb to one whose art 
 
 1 have defied for almost four score years; 
 
 And still I know I have been right all through. 
 
 If all the hosts of angry, tortured men 
 
 Had fought the long and bitter fight with me, 
 
 This age would not be weighted with a curse. 
 
 The church and state but totter to their fall, 
 
 When woman is frail, too ready to give an ear 
 
 To seductive tongues' soft wooing, to warmth and scent 
 
 And all that lulls the senses to repose. 
 
 My race is nearly run and so much remains 
 
 Of all I planned to do. but he who molds 
 
 The human heart works in a granite clay; 
 
 Forever servile under passion's sway. 
 
 The beckonings of the spirit lose their hold 
 
 On poor mankind, besotted, weak and vain. 
 
 Like gold dust lost in rushing torrents' roar. 
 
 Or birds that sing on stricken deserts' stretch, 
 
 Without a listener, the voice of God 
 
 Is wasted. The Way of Light unheeded takes 
 
 Its course across the arid, scorching plains. 
 
 And in the muddy, slime-grown river-bed. 
 
 For me, effulgent, rare it ever shines 
 
 In the bright north star, now peering keen and strong 
 
 From out the blue gray twilight's evening glow. 
 
 Alas! That others in this perfumed air 
 
 Of aromatic herbs and pungent pines 
 
 Would find but invitation to languor's sin! 
 
 If only prayer avails and with that prayer 
 
 A maid like Oriel to bear that north light far, 
 
 Perhaps at last I have not lived in vain. 
 
 (Enter Valeri, swinging a stick and humming.) 
 
 VAI^ERI. Your health improves, I hope, Emanuel? 
 
 EMANUEL. Oh, yes, but that is matter of small count. 
 I worry that the times seem sadly tossed, 
 By creeds and policies in conflict grim. 
 
 VALERI (smiling.) Some queer things seem to happen 
 down your way! 
 
 EMANUEL. The summer is a tempting time to place 
 Young blood at random in a leisure month. 
 So much the worse when negro clanging bells 
 Peal fortn melodious tones of honeyed sound. 
 
 VAI^ERL You mean the man with Indian blood — no fool — 
 And the handsome octoroon. I looked askance 
 At both. So high of hand they dash along 
 Like blooded steeds that run for money kings. 
 
 72 
 
Such mirtures are so common hereabouts, 
 
 I think we Latins know a trick or two, 
 
 To hold tliem in and keep them from the race. 
 
 EMANUEL. A trick or two is not amiss just here. 
 Some foolish people of our kind might fall 
 Into their net. Sibji's trap is ever set 
 To trip unwary feet. There is Sophia now. 
 
 (Enter Sophia crjing.) 
 
 SOPHIA (rushing up to Emanuel.) Your help, your help, I 
 don't know what to do; 
 
 They said that I must leave this place at once. 
 Because some dreadful thing has come to pass. 
 They say (crying hysterically) — they say, — it is not true, 
 
 oh no, — 
 Lucius is my friend, but nothing more. 
 Poor Andrew is so ill, and Sibyl has fled 
 I don't know where. My family would be shocked; 
 Emanuel, you will protect me, please! 
 
 VALERI (curiously.) What has happened now? Where are 
 your friends? 
 
 EMANUEL. Be calm, and tell me where is Oriel? 
 
 SOPHIA (impatiently.) How can I know? She never was 
 my friend. 
 
 I don't see why they all still praise her sc, 
 And say such things of me. She talks far more 
 Than I to Lucius! But they say that she is cold, 
 Strong-minded with much talk of learned books, 
 While I attract the men, 
 
 EMANUEL (patiently.) Who says these things? 
 
 SOPHIA (still whimpering.) That horrid marriage brought 
 it out, you know. 
 
 That Sibyl — and Lucius too — had colored blood. 
 Poor Andrew has been deserted by his bride; 
 He has a fever and perhaps will die; 
 It all came out and then there was such talk! 
 
 EMANUEL (gently.) Come back with me; we'll see what 
 can be done! 
 
 (Exit Emanuel and Sophia.) 
 
 VALERI. The plot begins to take an ugly turn. 
 Her reputation gone, that dainty girl 
 Will rue the day she sought this fertile land. 
 And Andrew is disgraced and put to shame, — 
 The papers will make a pretty tale of this! 
 I am glad that none of it is my concern. 
 Yet rather long to take a hand and play 
 The game for all that it is worth. The Sage 
 Puts endless faith in the sweet and dreamy maid. 
 He may be right; 'tis well to ride the moon. 
 When dangerous snakes are lurking in the grass. 
 The wonder is that Lucius' fancy is caught 
 
 73 
 
By a prudish girl who is deaf to lure of sex. 
 A motive is a skittish thing to trace! 
 
 (Enter Lucius noiselessly. He has a number of herbs and 
 plants in his hands, which he seems to be studying by the 
 fading light.) 
 
 VALERI. Good evening. This seems to be a favorite place 
 For guests from your hotel tonight. The third 
 To promenade within the grove this hour, 
 You seem to come to keep some lovers' tryst. 
 
 LUCIUS. Valeri, you are here? It is so dark. 
 At first I did not quite discern your face. 
 The night is so oppressive in its heat, 
 No wonder that thi? sheltered spot invites 
 The weary to a rest. Besides, you know, 
 There is some trouble in our camp below. 
 
 VALERI. I have heard a word or two, a rumor light, 
 A whiff of nasty scandal, touching Sibyl. 
 Has she played the devil with the little fop? 
 
 LUCIUS. Played it with malignant vengeance black as 
 death ; 
 
 She has cut him to the very core of life. 
 His heart is weak: — no chance he will survive. 
 
 VALERI. As a doctor, you must understand his case. 
 What feebleness to fall from the first hard blow 
 Of woman's perfidy! 
 
 LUCIITS. Her strength is great. 
 She quite o'ermatched him, then the fever came. 
 And laid him prostrate, all his force quite gone. 
 
 VALERI. It is too bad! And your Sophia may go 
 The same way. She is a weakling, too, 
 Was here just now complaining of the talk 
 Concerning you and her. Beware, my friend! 
 
 LUCIUS (gruffly.) The pursuit lias all been on her side, 
 poor fool! 
 
 With all her tiny might she rushed towards me. 
 And tried to make me marry her! Just think: 
 As if a nifcn were won by a thing so cheap! 
 
 VALERI. Your fancy takes another course, I see. 
 The one wiio retreats like a frightened, nervous hare. 
 Excites you to the pleasures of the chase. 
 The will o' the wisp is like a dragon fly, 
 A dazzling fry that is very hard to catch. 
 You are apt to weary with no goal in sight. 
 
 LUCIUS (sighing.) Alas! You tell me what I know too well! 
 But who is eager for the lowly plant 
 That crawls beneath \iis feet? It is the star 
 Whose scintillations ttmpt his sated eye. 
 And stir desire, which like a hungry flame 
 Consumes his being, i nd do you think that once 
 The quiver of a love w'nose pulse divine 
 
 74 
 
lieats wiih celestial music"!? tenderest strain, 
 Has strung our souls to feel its magic tone, 
 Wo can return to vacant depths of earth? 
 
 VAI>ERL By Jove! It is youth to be in love like that! 
 I will leave you here to cool your burning heart. 
 But il' you ever need a friend, call me. 
 1 must stroll about the fields and watch my men. 
 Who sometimes are too gay when work is done. 
 
 (Exit Valeri.) 
 
 (Lucius alone examines the different plants, herbs and 
 vines in his hands, smelling each one, putting one or two to 
 his tongue and rubbing the others between his thumb and 
 forefinger. Every now and then he pauses to look up at the 
 sky. The moon is just beginning to rise over the summit of 
 Mount St. Helena, shedding a warm golden light over the fore- 
 ground of tue scene, while the grove is in deep shadow. He 
 puts his hand to his temple with a gesture of great despair, 
 then, as if tired out, sits down on the fallen log where Emanuel 
 was seated, and bows his head over his hands, which are 
 still clasping the herbs. Enter Oriel, dressed in a white 
 muslin gown with a long train and long sleeves in something 
 of the Grecian style. Her neck is bare, and her hair is piled 
 high on her head. She is walking in a dreamy way almost 
 like a somnambulist, and looks very ghostly in the moonlight. 
 With the rustling of her footstep on the dry twigs in the grass, 
 he looks up.) 
 
 LUCIUS. Oriel! 
 
 (She gives a slight shriek and staggers slightly, then re- 
 covers herself, although she has her hand to her heart.) 
 
 ORIEL. I did not think to find you here. 
 I felt so strange, so queer, my nerves all ache; 
 It is so warm, yet some foreboding chills 
 The very marrow in my bones, i claim 
 No fear, and would not, like a coward, shrink; 
 I am ready for whatever chance may come, 
 To blot me from the map of mortal life. 
 You said last week that one of us must die. 
 It must be I, although my tingling brain 
 Has never seemed so full of life's flood-tide. 
 Surely the footfalls of old death are soft, — 
 He does not come like this with piercing shrieks. 
 And pain so vivid, cutting and intense. 
 I feel as if ten thousand knives had touched 
 The center of my every jumping nerve. 
 My brain electric moves to myriad thoughts, 
 Demanding answer where none is to be found. 
 
 LUCIUS (tenderly.) Oriel, my love, you are not well, I fear. 
 The struggle has been too much — you faint — come here. 
 
 ORIEL. Oh no! I do not faint! I only crave 
 To know what agony stupendous waits 
 
 76 
 
The other side of this experience. 
 
 I throttle, choke, with some great unknown doom. 
 
 It is as if this mountain's weight should fall 
 
 And crush me in, yet leave me still alive, 
 
 To suffer through the cruel years to come. 
 
 But tell me how are all the sick? 
 
 LUCIUS. The worst 
 Is true. Poor Andrew sinks to coming death. 
 They have turned Sophia from our dwelling-place. 
 I can't find Sibyl; — I think she lies in ambush, 
 Still planning some revenge for you and me. 
 For them I do not care; what if they die? 
 The world would never know the difference. 
 
 ORIEL. Oh, don't say that? A human spirit's breath, — 
 
 LUCIUS. Poor toads that clog the earth they walk across! 
 Now were it you — your precious life stands first 
 Of those who should be saved from violent death. 
 I may be second for still my brain works well. 
 Only today I made a new discovery. 
 Found these herbs with power to heal and cure 
 Disease that we have tried to fight in vain. 
 
 ORIEL. No one, no one stands so high as you 
 In science and colossal strength to make 
 Yourself a power throughout tnis land's expanse. 
 Make that your aim and cast this morbid love 
 From out your life. We can be happy friends 
 Upon that high platonic plane. 
 
 LUCIUS. Nay, nay. 
 I know myself; I should strive to win your love; 
 And failing that, the demon spirit would rise 
 And tempt me yet to hunt you as my prey. 
 I fear my own black self, the Indian rage 
 That might compel me to Sibyl's point of view. 
 Great God! The worla would darker be forever, 
 If we should so combine to crush your life! 
 It is my own white blood I reverence most. 
 Why then, the great white star shall be supreme! 
 My Oriel! Just say again you loved my mind — 
 We will forget the ravished heart this once. 
 We will pretend by the moonlight's subtle gleam. 
 That love lives only the head. My love! 
 
 ORIEL. Lucius! Your talk is wild and strange, my dear, 
 But if you wish it, why yes, I'll say this once, 
 I love most deeply all the best in you. 
 
 (She kisses him again on the forehead, as she did at the 
 winery.) 
 
 LUCIUS (chewing one of the herbs he holds in his hand and 
 throwing away the others.) 
 I am content; now hold my hand awhile. 
 And promise, dear, when I am gone, to kiss 
 
 76 
 
My brow again. 
 
 ORIEL. When you are gone? Gone where? 
 
 LUCIUS. Gone where I can no longer hinder you. 
 That herb has a very pleasant taste, beware, 
 You never touch it or put it to your tongue. 
 You see the flower is white, a snow-drop pure, 
 It is veined like a woman's eyelids cobweb fine, 
 Its virulent acid lurking in the leaf. 
 
 ORIEL. Lucius! Lucius! Give me that vine! 
 
 LUCIUS. Too late! 
 The poison works its fatal deadly way 
 Into this blood of mine, so strong and red. 
 So tinged and damned with brown. 
 
 ORIEL. It cannot be! 
 
 (She bends over him where he half reclines on the fallen 
 log.) 
 
 (Enter Sibyl from the rear in a stealthy manner. She 
 carries a heavy knotted manzanita stick, as if for climbing. 
 Lucius and Oriel do not see her at first.) 
 
 LUCIUS (holding Oriel's hand.) There is an ecstasy that 
 struggles through 
 
 This twisting pain I feel. So soon, I leave 
 For my long, sweet rest with nothing left to vex 
 My fretful will, no dreams of conquest, love, 
 Or science to make eternal, bitter war. 
 And you are wiih me, — how golden shines the moon! 
 How narcotic smells the perfumed, spreading bay! 
 Remember how we talked of it that day? 
 You would not be so large a tree, but Just 
 A pansy, velvet soft with open eyes. 
 Why in my clearing vision, I see you rise 
 And rise and rise, — the mountain is too low 
 To measure your ascending, luminous height. 
 And when you tread with fearless, airy step 
 In constellations of the Milky Way, 
 My heart from out the unknown grave of death, 
 Will follow you in everlasting love. 
 
 ORIEL. Lucius! I cannot bear it! You must not die! 
 I will call the men from Valeri's place; it is near. 
 There is time — release my hand — 
 
 (She attempts to rise, and is struck on the head by Sibyl, 
 who comes up from the rear with her heavy stick.) 
 
 SIBYL (striking.) I succeed at last! 
 You think that you can kill a giant thus, 
 A god of men born for a great command, 
 And never pay the price? You woman-fiend. 
 It is time you perished, although too late to save 
 My Lucius, my Lucius, who dies for love of you! 
 
 (Oriel staggers back with a wound on her temple, from 
 which the blood flows profusely. Sibyl raises her stick again. 
 
 77 
 
r nciiis n,al\es a supreme effort, raises himself from the log 
 and wre'^ts the stick from Sibyl's hand.) 
 
 H CIl^S. I die that she may live; how dare you mar 
 A work so nobly born? My Oriel, speak. 
 She has hurt you, not mortally, oh, God, I pray. 
 Valeri! Valeri! Come here! Help! Help! 
 
 (He sinks exhausted back on the log, clutching Sibyl's 
 stick. Sibyl advances in a menacing way towards Oriel.) 
 
 SIBYL. What right have you to live when he is gone? 
 What would you be without his strengthening arm? 
 Now everything I hoped has foundered quite, 
 It does not matter what I do: I swear 
 You shall not live, you would-be saint on earth! 
 
 (Enter Valeri from the rear. He clasps Sibyl in his arms 
 in a grip like iron.) 
 
 VALERI. You know the fate of people who talk like that! 
 A jail awaits them, where locked tight and fast. 
 There is no chance of mischief from their hands. 
 Miss Oriel, I hope you are not badly hurt? 
 I will take this woman away and go for help. 
 
 ORIEL. Oh, do not think of me! A trifling wound; 
 I will stanch it with my sleeve, but Lucius faints. 
 Oh look — be quick, — we cannot see him die! 
 
 (Valeri still holding Sibyl pinioned turns to look at Lucius, 
 who is lying almost unconscious on the log.) 
 
 VALERI. It cannot be that she has killed him too! 
 
 LUCIUS (faintly.) Oh no, I killed myself; I eat the ^ne. 
 It is a fight where one of us must die; 
 Oriel is so white, so great, so good, — I love her, — 
 The victory Is hers. 
 
 VALERI. This must not be. 
 I will run for aid — now courage, both of you! 
 
 (Valeri, dragging Sibyl after him, starts to make his exit.) 
 
 SIBYL (as she leaves.) Foul curses rain upon both black 
 and white; 
 
 I wish the day of doom would come right now. 
 And let us all find room in boiling hell. 
 
 (Exit Valeri with Sibyl.) 
 
 ORIEL. Lucius! Speak to me, it will do you good; 
 You must live to justify my faith in you. 
 Would not my life be worse than death, with you 
 A mortal sacrifice? Exiled from joy. 
 For all my days I would wander desolate 
 Throughout a barren world; devoid of mirth, 
 I would find my likeness in the bleak, north coast 
 Where glaciers and icebergs bar the way of man. 
 No good can ever come from so much wrong. 
 Lucius, be brave. We will try again to mount; 
 This time, no rocks will cut our bleeding feet, 
 
 78 
 
No (horns will bruise our hands, no blinding dust 
 Will dim our eyes. You do not answer, dear? 
 (Oriel peers into his face in the semi-darkness.) 
 LUCIUS. My answer is the monument of white 
 'i'hat you will place with pansies on my grave. 
 
 1 1 in your heart an echo 
 
 (His voice pinks. He falls back and dies.) 
 ORIEIj. His eyes look strange! 
 His heart (put her hand to his breast.)^ — is gone -quite gone — 
 he must be dead! 
 (She puts her hand to her head where the wound breaks 
 out afresh. A flood of moonlight pours down upon her, making 
 her look like a s'atue, as she stands in white with her temple 
 gashed and the blood streaming down the left side of her 
 gown.) 
 
 ORIEL. What have I done that life should hurt me thus? 
 Why must I live when living is all pain? 
 T wanted to act as one supremely right, 
 To lift, encourage, inspire and guide like light. 
 I tried to love him as no woman loved 
 Before, with love that never touched the senses; 
 1 wanted to diffuse a radiance pure, 
 To win him from his melancholy fate. 
 And all my hopes but curdled in his heart, 
 And sunk to depths unfathomed in his soul. 
 Oh, was I wrong to try to love at all, 
 Where I could not give my deepest being's thrill? 
 Henceforth, I will die to every tender voice 
 That calls to me from out the void of men. 
 I will freeze to marble, stand quite cold, alone, 
 Wheje no lover sees me but to shrink with fright. 
 From such forbidding ice, I will not move. 
 Not even if the artillery of heaven 
 
 Should turn its cannon against my snowy breast. 
 
 (Enter Emanuel, Valeri, and several men in the rear. They 
 
 stand behind as if in awe. She does not see them, but pre- 
 serves her statuesque pose.) 
 
 ORIEL. Why should I move at God's most urgent call? 
 
 I did your bidding, great Emanuel; 
 
 Explored a human soul, probed deep and far 
 
 Where woman never probed before, to gain 
 
 A glimpse of man alone in midnight sin. 
 
 I dreamed tiiat the luster of divine consent 
 
 Would shed its glory on our upward path: 
 
 I only tottered to the crumbling brink 
 
 Of a secret dark and strange, of hideous things 
 
 The hiding-place. Oh, Lucius! dead for me, 
 
 If you could see my purpose strung with iron, 
 
 You would be thankful for your restful death. 
 
 Take my work, oh, great Emanuel, 
 
 79 
 
My broken heart, and all I tried to do 
 
 And turn them to what mighty cause you will! 
 
 (She raises her right hand pointing upwards. The orchestra 
 slowly plays the funeral march from Beethoven's Eroica 
 Symphony, as the curtain descends.) 
 
 CURTAIN. 
 
THE KING'S GOAL. 
 
 A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS. 
 
 Act 1. The Drill-ground at the Presidio of San Francisco. 
 
 Act 2. The military camp near Cazadero. California. 
 
 Act ?i. Military prison at Alcatraz. 
 
 Act 4. Prize-fighters' ring in a circus tent, San Francisco. 
 
 Act 5. The Ring's palace in Alaska. 
 
 CHARACTERS. 
 
 Second Lieutenant Gabriel Erin, United States Army. 
 
 Gen. Bowpoint, IT. S. A., Col. Cummings, U. S. A. 
 
 Capt. Thos. Bitter, U. S. A. First Lieut. George Jones. 
 IT. S. A. First Lieut. Joe Eraser, U. S. A. First I ieut. Hard- 
 ing Ingram, U. S. A. 
 
 Sergeant Sweeney, U. S. A. Ex-Sergeant Heinz, U. S. A. 
 
 Ghost of Emperor, Marcus Aurelius. 
 
 Miss Helgolia Croolv, a modern woman. 
 
 Fantasia Crating, a courtesan. 
 
 Alasa Dollama, a fanatic. .Juan Knolles, a fanatic. 
 
 Washington Davis, a negro prize-fighter. 
 
 Soldiers, guards, prize-ring officials, prize-ring crowd, etc. 
 
 ACT 1. (Scene: Presidio of San Francisco. A morning 
 drill. Companies of soldiers drilling in the distance. Three 
 officers chatting in the foreground.) 
 
 JONES (laughing). Laughter is trickling down my very 
 spine. 
 And rippling through my bones;— it is such a game 
 To see those youngsters marching on parade 
 With a solemn strut of great importance, astride 
 Their new-born dignity and hard-won rank! 
 
 ERASER. Suppose they took it as a jolly farce? 
 Do you think your merriment the kind of stuff 
 Our army needs in this late day of strife? 
 
 INGRAM. It seems we need a Hector here and there 
 To change the scheme of our inconsequence. 
 
 JONES. Those heroes of the ancient time were, dreams 
 That old men spun in tedious, vacant days. 
 I do not doubt the lads were just like us, 
 Quite fond of sport and wine and easy work, 
 The government's pay that never fails each month. 
 And the passing joke that is our best of life. 
 
 81 
 
FRASER. And so to you there is nought but froth and 
 mirth, 
 In all the tales of fighting men of might, — 
 But greybeards cumbered with a wrinkled brain, 
 Who wove fictions to deceive the race of boys. 
 Compelling young cadets to act in plays 
 Of serious poise that never yet in life 
 Had actual counterpart? 
 
 JONES. You hit my thought 
 Just right. — you follow with a nimble step 
 In deviations of the skipping mind, 
 Although in shooting tests you aim amiss. 
 
 INGRAM. What matters when he'll not be called to shoot 
 At a living target, Peace surrounding quite 
 Our reservation made of army toys. 
 Where puppets fall to show our bullets' strength, 
 And our sabres flash against the empty breeze? 
 
 FRASER. The god of war has slumbered now so long, 
 Perhaps he will wake some day with a thunder clap, 
 And hurl us all to a seething gulf of arms. 
 Where lives or mangled limbs their forfeit pay. 
 (Enter Capt. Bitter.) 
 
 BITTER. Young men, you cut an idle figure here. 
 Standing by unoccupied in the morning hour. 
 The passers-by might think you had gone to seed. 
 And lose the respect a soldier should command. 
 
 JONES. We have drilled and drilled till not a drill is left, 
 What would you have us do? Pretend still more 
 That war is a serious game, and not a dance 
 For little boys inclined to naughtiness? 
 
 BITTER. Hush! Hush! Your tongue is running far too 
 fast, 
 So fast, you tempt me to apply the gag. 
 The crime our chiefs will pardon least of all 
 Is too much babbling of our secret shrine. 
 
 FRASER. Our shrine? You mean our regulations, plans. 
 The things we learn and never hope to use, — 
 There is nothing in the stale and hackneyed grind. 
 Except to watch the younger men a. work. 
 Like blacksmiths who strive to hammer out a nail 
 All other nails excelling, and think that there 
 They have a task the world will give applause. 
 
 JONES. That was our joke a moment since, — the face 
 The novice puts on this routine of ours, — 
 Young Gabriel Erin standing there with sword 
 At angle with the paling northern sky. 
 Is poised like a warrior of the ancient time. 
 When all warfare meant the handling of the spear. 
 His uniform is life and death to him; 
 
 82 
 
He is so earnest that a tleck of dust 
 Upon his coat or hlade would bring about 
 A.n agony. 
 INGRAM. Poor lad! You joke with him? 
 JONES. Do T? Did you ever throw a tiny bean 
 Against the wall of China? Or aim a sling-shot 
 At the dome of Heaven? Your mark would be as good 
 As any trial light and gay and blithe 
 Against the adamant of our young friend. 
 
 BITTER. He is stern and sure and proud, I have observed, 
 The kind of youth who craves bold danger's chance, 
 And loves a mighty fling of brilliant peril, 
 \s other men love wine. He comes this way. 
 
 (The company who have been drilling disperse and Gabriel 
 ai)proaches the group of officers.) 
 
 JONES. Erin, my boy, we were admiring you, 
 As you stood there so silent and so straight. 
 The men beneath you swayed at your command, 
 I. ike ears of corn that sweep now right, now left 
 As the breeze dictates, or upright stand when winds 
 Are low, and motion sinks to noiseless rest. 
 
 ERIN (earnestly). You think then that my work has some 
 effect? 
 I struggle with the men at drill each day, 
 And they are never absent from my thoughts. 
 1 try to mold them to some great ideal. 
 Of warriors of a grand heroic time. 
 Who fought for Glory, Truth, their flag and God, 
 And little cared for joys of ease ot life 
 That most men prize above the shining field 
 Of Honor. 
 
 INGRAM. Why waste your labor on the men? 
 Give us a lesson in that lofty strain. 
 Help us to feel that war is the noblest cause 
 That can engage the heart and strength of man. 
 
 BITTER, loon't let them take their jokes too far, my boy, 
 Tis they should teach and you should learn, you know. 
 And discipline cannot walk the other way. 
 
 ERIN. Why, sir, I never dreamed of such a thmg. 
 [ know my place, and I will keep it too, 
 Below all others of a senior grade. 
 I still mav have my way with squads of men 
 At drill, who lack all education's aid. 
 
 TONES Oh then we'll slip the art of war and talk 
 Of other things. Just let the youngster give 
 His views of life and love,— and friendship too. 
 
 BITTER. Be careful that you do not go too far 
 In talk of worldly things to one just born 
 From the imposing lectures of our great war-school, 
 
The most advanced and strongest in the world 
 
 (Exit Bitter.) 
 
 ERASER (to Erin). It is such men as that who make us 
 weak. 
 Beware his type and yet you may escape 
 The deadening grind of daily army life. 
 We all began like you, in hope, alert: 
 Our calling seemed of all the noblest one: 
 Our hearts ambitious flamed with zest of war. 
 We prayed for the chance our banner to unfurl 
 Amid the roar of cannons' mighty throats. 
 And in the darkness dense of a smoky field. 
 Enthusiasm was born, but born to die. 
 The great craving of our hot young blood foi- fame. 
 Soon spent itself in useless exercise. 
 We wished to rise and found ourselves curtailed 
 By trival men like Bitter and his kind. 
 Who ever walk one lonely circle round • 
 
 With no begi'nning and no end, no point 
 Or aim beyond its own encompassing. 
 They ask of us but just the same routine. 
 The walking of the daily round, — .iust so, — 
 
 (He makes a few mincing steps up and down.) 
 With never dream or hope or step beyond. 
 
 ERIN. Would you have me then believe this time is 
 worse 
 Than all the others that have gone before? 
 That every impulse to Glory's heroic field 
 Is but the effervescence of a youth too warm? 
 That puppets in the name of men hold sway 
 O'er other men who yearn for excellence. 
 And crush them all to tiny manikins? 
 Why it seems to me that it would be as well 
 If the gorilla and the ourang-outang should reign, 
 And let the human race for once and all 
 Into its own dead ashes sink expired. 
 
 JONES. That's just the kind of talk we hoped from you. 
 Now make it good and we will follow you 
 On any steep ascent you choose to take. 
 I have laughed so much that merriment is stale. 
 Just for a change I would like to see a war. 
 Be you the cause, young Gabriel, my lad. 
 Our farce has run its long predestined course. 
 We wait for one to come with sweeping robes, 
 Of rich and glorious tragedy, — for YOU! 
 
 ERIN. I think you never joked so much as now. 
 What could I do to bring about a war? 
 It takes a king or two or nations' might 
 To bring about that cataclysmic strife 
 
We know as war. 
 
 INGRAM. A king or two you say? 
 And whence has come the right of any man 
 To say that he is king with power to rule 
 O'er millions subject to his voice and pen? 
 
 JONES. You touch upon a question of deep import. 
 What makes a king? Or what in olden time 
 Made first the forbears of our present kings? 
 
 FRASER. There is a legend that they took the field. 
 And fought their way through lances bristling sharp 
 To an eminence where safe, secure, they stood, 
 From any harm that mortal could devise. 
 
 ERIN. An immortal then is born from out the ranks 
 Where mortals but too soon their doom discover? 
 
 FRASER. I cannot say, and yet perchance there is 
 Some truth behind the legends that are told 
 Of gods and demi-gods when first the world 
 Was born from Chaos' dark unravellings. 
 
 (There is a military call sounded on a trumpet. Fraser 
 and Jones start.) 
 
 JONES (mockingly). I go to play my mimic game of war, 
 With my little dolls in mimic battle-play. (Exit Jones.) 
 
 FRASER. When next you probe the dimness of dim time, 
 And question if the men on thrones are there 
 By better right than we who tread a line 
 Of daily littleness, remember me. 
 I listen well and may do something more. 
 
 (Exit Fraser.) 
 
 INGRAM. Erin, suppose once more we try to found 
 A race of kings,— and — start the line with you! 
 
 ERIN (starting). What fancy of a madman's brain is this? 
 
 INGRAM. Your life thus far is pure, without alloy; 
 Your are strong and straight and true, with living faith 
 That Glory is a fitting goal for men. 
 In Egypt the right to be a king was won 
 By cutting off the heads of other kings. 
 We won't do that, but something better far; 
 We will make them feel that kings whose right of reign 
 Has come from birth are puny things compared 
 With those who fight their way just step by step 
 From the lowest rank to one so soaring high 
 All other men stand back ashamed, abased. 
 
 ERIN (uncovering his head). The work which you assign, 
 stupendous, vast, 
 Towers o'er my head sublimely radiant, white, 
 Like a mountain whose icy summit point is lost. 
 Within the myriad encircling clouds of mist 
 That wreathe around it with caressing breath, 
 
Yet hol.l it ever hid within their depths. 
 
 I would say "No" but that a voice commands 
 
 The fearful task, — (He looks up with an inspired expression.) 
 
 [ Wn.L, I WILL be king! 
 
 INGRAM (looking at him in admiration, yet startled.) 
 Great Heaven! The boy is earnest even now! 
 
 (Enter Alasa Dollama and Juan Knolles. Dollama, tall, 
 dark, slight, like an ancient Jew or Arab, is dressed in civilian 
 American clothes except for his shirt, which is blood-red. 
 Knolles is very plain, short, fat and dark, almost grotesque 
 in appearance. He is dressed in blue jeans like a working- 
 man, and has an ugly, villainous countenance.) 
 
 DOLLAMA. We are strangers coming here from the dis- 
 tant east. 
 And wish to learn somewhat of your soldiers' ways. 
 
 KNOLLES. And how this land compares with ours far off, 
 Across the ocean's waste and danger deeps. 
 
 INGRAM. What is the land you would compare to this? 
 
 DOLLAMA. We are not allowed to say, but it is one so old. 
 The tiny mind of man cannot take in 
 The vast extent of time the world lived there. 
 
 INGRAM'. Why then no doubt you will find us very young, 
 The veriest infants of the human race. 
 I almost fear to tell you overmuch. 
 You will laugh and laugh at our insignificance. 
 Lieut. Erin here, will show you round. 
 I pray you cast a tolerant, kindly eye 
 Upon the imperfections of our youth. 
 
 (Exit Ingram.) 
 
 ERIN. No doubt you want to see our daily drill. 
 Just come this way, the parade takes place at noon. 
 DOLLAMA. I give so little for a view of drill, 
 I would snap my fingers at ten million souls. 
 Stretched out in line with marching step and mien. 
 Nor do I care for soldiers' gold parade. 
 But I would know; I must; I shall; tell me 
 .lust where your hidden strength lies low and where 
 The weakness those will find who conquer you. 
 
 ERIN. It seems to me you ask by far too much; 
 We do not assume that any weakness lies 
 Within our scheme of batteries and forts. 
 
 DOLLAMA. Why Knolles and I will be the judge of that. 
 I plan our line of work in searching deep 
 The rotten hearts of governments' decay; 
 And Knolles puts his finger on the sore, 
 
 ERIN. I recognize no right to seek this sore. 
 Our army is as strong as death, as death 
 Not yet invaded by immortal pomp. 
 Unconquered, fair, the banners wave sublime 
 
O'er millions of iiiileK of smiling, happy land; 
 
 O'er acres that teem with fruit and wheat, and wine; 
 
 O'er mountains that cast forth eternal sold, 
 
 Instinted. lavish, pouring ever out, 
 
 Like ;-olar rays in undiminished wealth; 
 
 O'er rivers bearing commerce to the sea. 
 
 An instance of the vast prosperity 
 
 Of happ> men who bask in heaven's grace. 
 
 DO LLAMA. You put a pretty gloss upon the facts! 
 But cannot fcol a man with second sight. 
 Look close at me, — do I seem the kind of man 
 Who would soften and return a kissing smile? 
 Or df' > ou think, that all your gold could buy 
 One jot Oi my proud purpose's strong intent? 
 I am not fo easily deceived, my friend. 
 We know in that sweet ancient land of ours 
 That men have almos': run their giddy race!! 
 
 (He draws Erin aside with threatening, impressive 
 demeanor.) 
 We come to kill all men unfit to live!! 
 
 KNOLLES. Yes, it is my task to see them end, 
 To snuff them out like gnats of feeble life. 
 With all my might I think of Death, that's all,— 
 They go; the world is better for their loss. 
 
 ERIN (in a tone of repressed horror). And who is to 
 judge if they are fit to live? 
 
 KNOLLES. Why no one ever could deceive Dollama. 
 He has eyes that see through walls opaque and dark. 
 Like stars that cut their way through thickened space, 
 And send their rays of light to benighted men: 
 Like fire that burns a forest to the ground, 
 Hewing down the stoutest trunks and leaves. 
 And rushing with the wind to open light, 
 His glances trace their course of surest sight 
 Into the remotest depths of ugly life. 
 He sees: I act: and jou? What will you do? 
 
 ERIN. You cannot mean to say I must not live? 
 
 DOLLAMA. No reason you should live when others die. 
 I smell an evil in this very place, — 
 Your army quivers to a certain doom. 
 We must kill the young; the old die anyway. 
 Come now; defend yourself; advance; I strike! 
 
 (Dollama takes a menacing attitude, braces himself like 
 a sinuous contortionist, and tries to wrestle with Erin. The 
 young officer springs to grapple with him, and they struggle 
 for a few moments, the lieutenant apparently having the 
 upper hand. At the end of a few breathless moments, how 
 ever, Erin falls to the ground, picks himself up, tries to move 
 his arms and finds that they cleave to his sides.) 
 
 87 
 
ERIN. What black art have you tried to use on me. 
 That thus the strength deserts my athlete's arms? 
 
 KNOLLES. And if you knew tlie secret I employ. 
 You would perhaps be just as strong as I. 
 
 DOLLAMA. You see we prove we quite excel your art; 
 You cannot cope with us in any field, 
 For if we will that you should die at once, 
 You have no means to thwart our purpose fell. 
 Juan Knolles showed himself quite kind to you. 
 You still have chance to live until we prove 
 Your army soaked with all the guile we fear. 
 We think you sunk in sloth and greed and vice, 
 Like vermin crawling to pestilential holes, 
 Or parasites that feed on human blood. 
 
 ERIN (hotly). Your insult shall not go unavenged, I swear. 
 At least the war we make is honor's own: 
 We kill perhaps in open light of day. 
 But murder has not entered on our books. 
 We fight to prove our valor, strength and nerve. 
 But do not stoop as you have done to wound 
 With weapons borrowed from the devil's store. 
 Sergeant I Come here! 
 
 (Enter Sergeant Sweeney, who salutes and looks aghast 
 when he sees Erin make a futile effort to move his arms in 
 return.) 
 It is time for the review? 
 
 SWEENEY. The general and his staff come by this way 
 Right now: He goes to see the battle play 
 Upon the upper grounds. But you are ill? 
 
 ERIN. No matter. I have guests for him to see. 
 
 DOLLAMA (sneeringiy). I thought you would refer to 
 higher rank. 
 We make our fight alone, while you need aid. 
 
 ERIN (sternly). Our army does not stand upon its tip 
 Like a pyramid inverted in the sand. 
 My youth perforce must hold its horses in 
 Before my seniors in command and age. 
 
 (Enter Bowpoint with two or three staff officers following 
 him silently and respectfully. He is an immense man of 
 about sixty with piercing black eyes and abundant silver 
 hair.) 
 
 ERIN. General, two strangers come from distant shores. 
 Deep versed in ancient oriental lore. 
 They question all our ways and seem to doubt 
 Our faith and patriotic truth. (Turning to Dollama). Your 
 names? 
 
 DOLLAMA. Alasa Dollama is my name; my friend 
 Is Juan Knolles. 
 
BOWPOINT (extending his hand), I welcome you, my 
 friends. 
 We go to see the brigade in exercise 
 Upon the hills. I hope you will come with us. 
 
 DOLLAMA (showing his teeth). I hope your troops are 
 not like this young man. 
 We tried his nerve and found it lily weak. 
 Like a blade of grass that breaks at stroke of whip, 
 Or a house of mud that crumbles in the wind, 
 He cowered in the teeth of what we said. 
 
 KNOLLES. You see he cannot even keep his legs. 
 But staggers like a man inflamed with rum. 
 
 (A paralysis similar to that which seized his arms attacks 
 Erin in the legs. He stumbles to his knees then with a 
 fearful effort that makes him black in the face with the 
 muscles standing out like cords, he rises.) 
 
 ERIN. General, you must know the truth at once. 
 These men come here with foul intent to kill. 
 They have some skill in foreign magic black. 
 They have tried to take my life by will alone, 
 By will so charged with villainous design 
 They seem to have the aid of fiends unseen, 
 Who, clustering many thousands deep in air, 
 Give their support to work a murder plot. 
 
 DOLLAMA. We are convinced your army needs a shock. 
 > The grime and rust are thick upon your arms. 
 You fight to get your pay and nothing more, 
 While the country in your care is near the brink 
 Of ruin in the dark abyss of things. 
 
 BOWPOINT. If this is war, then be it so, — come on. 
 We camp next month beneath the shade of trees 
 So vast the sun scarce penetrates their gloom; 
 But our camp-fires burn from morn to darkest night 
 And we fight and fight and always fight for truth. 
 Be you our guests; apply your blackest art, 
 And find us armed to our very teeth and bones. 
 For today, farewell! 
 
 (Exit Bowpoint and staff.) 
 
 KNOLLES. A grand old boy! It seems we met 
 The weakest first in you, young man so frail. 
 
 ERIN (maintaining his standing posture with difficulty and 
 moving his hands very slightly.) 
 
 ERIN. So frail you say? I can refuse to die: 
 And I will take my second vow today: 
 I'll see Uirough miles of intervening space, 
 And time that makes us veriest slaves in leash. 
 I'll see with glance excelling yours, Dollama, 
 And you shall learn to die before I'll yield 
 To your friend's sharp thrusts of murder-shapened will. 
 
(The beating of drums from the parade-ground is heard 
 in the distance. Enter Ingram.) 
 
 INGRAM. My Gabriel, how white you look! (To Dollama 
 and Knolles.) 
 Salute the king! 
 
 DOLLAMA. My eyes divined the boy would seize a crown 
 In these strange days when crowns are worn no more, 
 And so I came this way to cut him down. 
 Knolles, we were right, we have come here 
 To kill the king! 
 
 (Knolles moves toward Erin, and bends his eyes on him as 
 if to paralyze him still further. Instead Erin steps forward 
 with a free movement, throws his head back, makes the 
 salute to Sweeney, who has been standing open-mouthed all 
 the time, and mar.ches off the stage.) 
 
 INGRAM. I said, Salute the king! 
 
 CURTAIN. 
 
 ACT 2. (Scene: Military camp in the redwoods near 
 Cazadero, California. Twilight. Camp fires burning in the 
 distance. Deep beautiful redwoods; picket lines just outside 
 of which Helgolia Crook and Fantasia Crating are sitting. 
 Helgolia is a large, handsome woman of about forty-five. 
 Fantasia, beautiful courtesan of about thirty. Two months 
 later.) 
 
 HELGOLIA. I suppose you know this is a camp for men,— 
 We run a risk so near their picket line. 
 
 FANTASIA. Not I. — they squirm and risk their very necks 
 To get one glimpse of me, — that's why I came. 
 
 HELGOLIA. I stoop a fearful length in talk with you. 
 Only our bond of sex could make me bend 
 To make a common cause with such as you. 
 
 FANTASIA. Why tell me that? Your motive in your face 
 Is written large, — there is some end of self 
 Leads you to want me for your ready tool. 
 Who is the man? 
 
 HELGOLIA. Astute like all your kind! 
 An enemy to woman's hope is here, 
 I had the message (from those wires we use 
 Of subtle, rapid, telegraphic news,) 
 That Ambition come to life once more, full-armed, 
 Walks rampant and unchecked in soldier's guise, 
 That a young man fights to gain a power supreme. 
 
 FANTASIA. You hate him just for very hate of power 
 That centered in a single mind may work 
 A tyrant's ruin, or does your venom come 
 From sources nearer to your own desire? 
 
 HELltOLIA. Enough he is a man, a sex abased! 
 The day has passed when empires in the van 
 
 90 
 
Of progress' mighty march, were to triumph led 
 
 Hy the masculine sex alone; the day is ours! 
 
 'Phe women ride with wings of victory, 
 
 Their path unchallenged in the velvet night, 
 
 And through the waters of the rushing tide. 
 
 Although long the future has been held our own. 
 
 The men have robbed us of the potent Present, 
 
 The Present that invincible, untamed, 
 
 Stands like a sentinel in armor clad. 
 
 With brass and steel and iron cl:tains combined, 
 
 Against the intrusions of future time and past. 
 
 On his brow a diamond shines with lustre rare, 
 
 Fo!' whose full beam, the whole world fighting strives. 
 
 FANTASIA. You speak in parables: show me the man. 
 You want him landed in corruption's net, 
 A net that never yet has wound round you. 
 
 HELGOLIA. For a moment come with me behind this tree. 
 V.e comes and with him one on whom he leans. 
 
 (Helgolia and Fantasia withdraw behind one of the big 
 trees.) 
 
 (Enter Erin and Ingram.) 
 
 ERIN, tt is strange Dollama keeps so still these days; 
 Perhaps he and his friend are won to calm and peace, 
 By arts the General knows so well to use. 
 
 INGRAM. I think they both lie low to spring again; 
 There is something of the snake in Dollama's curves. 
 So sinuous, soft and smooth, you would not dream 
 A poison gathered in his ready fangs, 
 Or that his muscle nerves were trained to crush. 
 I know we are as calm as if we smoked 
 The pipe of peace in an Indian's silent camp. 
 The perfume of the sweet, narcotic weed 
 Is in our nostrils breathing without sound. 
 The stillness of the silk-green shadow here. 
 Would tempt the god of wakefulness to sleep. 
 And yet both night and day we form our troops 
 In battle line! What noise is that, do you hear? 
 
 (There is a rustling of the skirts of Helgolia and Fantasia 
 who step from behind the trees.) 
 
 FANTASIA. The camp is warm; can you tell me where to 
 drink? 
 
 ERIN. I will bring some water from the spring near by. 
 
 (Exit Erin.) 
 
 HELGOLIA. A touch of chivalry marks that young man. 
 One cannot but note his face; he is unlike 
 The usual fighting man. He rather seems 
 To have won his spurs in ancient tournament 
 Amid the excitements of a regal court. 
 He has a haughty air, a defiant brow, 
 
 91 
 
As if he would the impossible attain. 
 
 INGRAM. He is a youth of promise and good fame. 
 
 FANTASIA. So sweet he must be mirrored many times 
 In women's eyes. 
 
 INGRAM. He loves his friends, the men 
 Of his own regiment, but no one else; 
 He has never looked on woman's face with love. 
 
 HBLGOLIA. You keep from him the worldly side of 
 things, 
 Because you destine him for some high career! 
 Fantasia, this is the man of whom I spoke. 
 
 (Enter Erin with the water which he hands to Fantasia.) 
 
 FANTASIA. That is the sweetest thing my lips have 
 touched. 
 I have walked through many weary miles of sand, 
 With blazing sun upon my blistering skin, 
 And not a friend to say, "Good day." "Rest here. 
 Now if you do not mind I'll kiss you, dear. 
 
 (She bends forward with unctuous, pursedup lips. Erin 
 starts and draws back horrified, while Helgolia bursts into 
 derisive laughter.) 
 
 ERIN. No, no, I do not kiss, I never will. 
 
 HELGOLIA. And yet you dare to call yourself a man? 
 The right to be a man is only won 
 
 When woman's luscious lips have matched with yours. 
 A soldier and you blush like this, oh fie! 
 
 ERIN. My lips are sacred to the love who waits 
 For me in some far land as yet unseen. 
 That I shall reach when my long fight is done. 
 And if in battle's midst with clashing arms, 
 My life must pass unto its mortal end, 
 Why still I'll keep the tryst with my sacred dream. 
 And hold myself forever pure for her. 
 
 HELGOLIA. The boy is very young; he has yet to learn. 
 
 INGRAM (to Fantasia). Perhaps you will transfer your 
 kiss to me? 
 
 FANTASIA. You scarcely are so dear, — you will have to 
 wait. 
 
 (Enter Dollama, Knolles and .lones.) 
 
 JONES. You have women in the camp, and I not here? 
 An introduction please. 
 
 INGRAM. I don't know their names. 
 
 HELGOLIA. Names don't count: I want to learn to fight. 
 Why should you men usurp the field of arms? 
 I have learned to fence with rapier and broad swords. 
 And I would shoot as well and ride and kill. 
 
 KNOLLES. You shall have a prize, if you learn to kill 
 like me. 
 
 DOLLAMA. At last we come upon the truth of things. 
 
 92 
 
Like you, Madame, I visit in this camp, 
 Whose order stifles with its monotony. 
 The flowered surface of a mountain slope 
 Is "never half so fair as when the gas 
 Of under-earth has gathered to explode 
 And plunge the outer crust in blackening fire. 
 I thought it strange no women followed here. 
 
 HELGOLIA (aside to Dollama.) You have a face of 
 strange alluring charm, 
 Perhaps you have a purpose like my own! 
 
 JONES (approaching them). Dollama is right, — we need 
 some women here 
 To applaud our work and laugh when we come back. 
 
 (Fantasia, Ingram and Knolles form one group flirting; 
 while Helgolia and Dollama are in another. Erin is by him- 
 self sternly regarding them. Enter Col. Cummings.) 
 
 CUMMINGS. Erin, what curious game of dice is this? 
 
 ERIN. Sir, I do not know, they look most strange. 
 
 CUMMINGS. I must disturb this revelry at once. 
 The orders are no women enter here. 
 Ladies, the road to town lies over there. 
 
 (Fantasia, who has been standing next to Knolles, faints.) 
 
 KNOLLES. The road lies quite ten miles on a dusty way, — 
 This lady languishes and cannot walk. 
 
 ERIN (starting). Juan Knolles at his tricks again, I see! 
 
 INGRAM. She cannot go and should not stay alone! 
 
 HELGOLIA. You will not dare to drive me from her side! 
 This government has now defrauded me. 
 Depriving me of army rank and pay, 
 Although I am a soldier of fair fame. 
 
 CUMMINGS. Madam, the army list is made of men. 
 
 HELGOLIA. Of men? What constitutes a man, I say? 
 Not one of you can do the things I do. 
 I fence and conquer, write and organize; 
 A million women rise at my command. 
 Of untainted life, I scorn your open grime. 
 You dare not send me forth; I hurl the glove! 
 
 DOLLAMA. We'll have some sport of rich revealing now; 
 It will be fun to kill when killing is earned. 
 Colonel, I think that you should let her stay! 
 
 KNOLLES. This lady is growing worse, — the night 
 comes on. 
 You cannot play the inhuman brute towards her. 
 
 CUMMINGS (at a loss what to do). Give them a tent, but 
 I'll have no nonsense here. 
 The officer whose head is turned is lost. 
 
 (Exit Cummings.) 
 
 KNOLLES. The martinet has gone so we can have 
 
 93 
 
A merry bout or two with the e fond gii'ls- 
 
 ( Fantasia comes out of her faint.) 
 
 FANTASIA. How strange! A moment since I felt quite 
 dead! 
 And now my blood runs swiftly as bright champagne 
 When the cork is drawn and it bubbles sparkling forth. 
 
 INGRAM. Speak in a lower tone if you want to stay. 
 
 DOLLAMA. I like her conversation as it is, — 
 Of tropical luxuriance rich and full. 
 It reminds me of our gorgeous groves at home. 
 Where the tiger and the python rove in mud 
 Perfumed with odors of the jungle flower, 
 And streams where live in boiling eddies free, 
 A million tiny throbbing things that swim. 
 
 INGRAM. The commanding officer is very strict,-- 
 We lose our honor, place and army rank 
 If we disobey. 
 
 DOLLAMA. You have a choice to make 
 Between obedience to your colonel's rules, 
 And the speedy death that Knolles and I can work. 
 
 HBLGOLIA. This Oriental has a way like mine. (To 
 Dollama.) 
 Suppose we join to make attack on them, 
 And prove these bold gallants but strutting fools? 
 
 DOLLAMA. Your presumption quite outruns your mental 
 view. 
 If you think that I ally with any one. 
 I am almost sure you should be first to die. 
 Your boasting is so large; an unsexed thing, 
 Too monstrous for a woman's soft unfolding. 
 Too intense and cruel for a man's sane force, 
 A hybrid preying on all simpler kinds. 
 Of an influence ferocious and malign. 
 You come most aptly here to prove me right 
 In claiming that the human race is spent 
 And tottering to a last ignoble eclipse. 
 
 HELGOLIA. Why turn your ugly prying eyes on me? 
 I wear a woman's dress and am not young. 
 Take that proud lieutenant standing there, 
 Disdainful, shocked at every word we say. 
 He fancies he can live without my sex. 
 And fancies wrong, — just watch the pulling down 
 Of those tall and selfish vain ideas of his. 
 
 FANTASIA. Who'll take my bet I'll kiss this virgin youth, 
 Before midnight falls upon our slumbering camp? 
 
 (Helgolia laughs and prods Jones who is standing near her.) 
 
 HELGOLIA. You are so proud of this young whelp of 
 yours. 
 Reply at once! Take up the bet! Be quick! 
 
JONES (excited). 1 swear by yonder evening star fiill-lil, 
 That, as we speak, the Western Heaven mounts, 
 That Gabriel Erin is from vice immnre. 
 That he will never curve his perfect lips, 
 Except, to kiss of holy wedded wife. 
 If Erin fails, I will wed this woman here. 
 Although her age by years exceeds my own. 
 
 (He puts his arm roughly about Helgolia.) 
 
 HELGOLIA. I am not loth, young man, it woul.l be a way, 
 To enter in the army ranks I crave. 
 Fantasia! Win! 
 
 FANTASIA. There is no doubt I will. 
 I see him quiver in the soft night breeze. 
 
 (Erin with quivering nostril and braced shoulders takes 
 the center of the stage.) 
 
 ERIN. How dare you make me subject of a bet? 
 This scene already borders on disgrace; 
 Our officers stand here in abject fear 
 Of Dollama and his friend and their black art, 
 While an abandoned woman tries to work her spell! 
 Before I would admit her tainted touch, 
 I would run with enchantment's speed of flying feet, 
 To lonely caves deep down in mountain's depths: 
 I will turn my nerves to unflinching, hardened steel. 
 And defy her to advance against my will! 
 
 (Fantasia, Helgolia, Dollama, and Knolles set up a howl 
 of ghoulish, horrible laughter and jeering. Ingram and Jones 
 stand in the rear frightened. Night comes on and the fires 
 of the camp in the distance burn fitfully but brilliantly.) 
 
 FANTASIA. He dares me to advance one step, the fool! 
 Gabriel Erin, you cannot live without me! 
 
 (She makes a step towards him while he stands rigid and 
 white in the starlight. Enter General Bowpoint who has 
 heard the laughter and the last remark.) 
 
 BOWPOINT (eternly). Lieutenant Erin, what strange 
 scene is this? 
 Two women in the camp with vulgar mirth! 
 They must leave at once, Ingram, — away with them! 
 And you j'oung Gabriel Erin, are under arrest. 
 Jones, you clear the camp and call the guard. 
 The guests will go with me while Erin stays 
 Alone just ten yards from the picket fence. 
 One step beyond and you know the penalty. 
 
 (Exeunt Bowpoint with Dollama and Knolles, and Ingram 
 and Jones with Helgolisa and Fantasia all looking fright- 
 ened.) 
 
 ERIN (alone). I did not bring these women to the camp. 
 And more than any I loathe their presence here, 
 Yet I must pay the forfeit; JUSTICE DEAD! 
 
 95 
 
The silence of the night upon my heart. 
 
 Is like a weight of a million iron tons; 
 
 It is as if the earth's whole atmosphere 
 
 Condensing to a space of little width 
 
 Were pressing down upon my being frail. 
 
 Great God! enthroned in everlasting light, 
 
 Have I presumed in trying to be king? 
 
 Has punishment so soon upon me come, 
 
 To extinguish aspiration's holy aim? 
 
 How strange the camp-fires glow across the wood! 
 
 They do not seem to be of our own make, 
 
 But rather phantasms of the eternal fire, 
 
 That beckon now with ghostly tongues of flame. 
 
 To some strange sights and sounds before unknown 
 
 In my short life's continual tug and strain. 
 
 The night is warm with summer's heaving breath. 
 
 Yet fingers from the frozen northern pole, 
 
 Seem to trifle with my spinal nerves. 
 
 Can it be that death advances with such steps? 
 
 Not yet! Not yet! It is not time for that! 
 
 I must lead my men, — they waver under me; 
 
 The earth in feeble hands is rocking down 
 
 To some dark chasm of prehistoric night. 
 
 I must bear the burden in the crunching snow, 
 
 Invoke great Justice, — violated, sad, — 
 
 Once more to sweep the putrid ashes here. 
 
 Once more benign to reign o'er suffering men. 
 
 I suffer too! The pangs are in my flesh, 
 
 I could scream in maddening, sickening wrath and pain, 
 
 And pray for love's sweet ecstasy and rest. 
 
 But no! I said I would be king; alone 
 
 A king must stand, though murder claims his youth. 
 
 What sound is that? A murmur scarcely heard, 
 
 As if the whispering leaves had sympathy, 
 
 It trembles on the silent, heated air 
 
 Like music in a cello's waiting strings, 
 
 Before the master touches them to life. 
 
 How strange! I thought I heard a voice so soft. 
 
 It never could have come from mortal throat, — 
 
 I seem to see, — great God, what man is that? 
 
 (Enter the ghost of Marcus Aurelius.) 
 
 GHOST. I saw you standing there alone, not one 
 To bring you comfort, hope or surcease from care. 
 You must stand like that through all your earthly days, 
 Bridegroom of pain, the greatest of all slaves. 
 
 ERIN. Great Spirit, who are you who speak like this? 
 What gloomy prophecy is this you give? 
 
 GHOST. A stoic emperor of the Roman time, 
 Marcus Aurelius who struggled to be just, 
 
 96 
 
Just to all the world, though sorrow's friend 
 Himself. 
 
 ERIN. I would carve my way through pea-^ of blood, 
 And cut my feet on fields of sharpened knives. 
 To be one moment like your august self. 
 
 GHOST. Be not surprised that every evil comes 
 Upon your aching head: be firm, be kind. 
 Though all the world should seek to slaughter you. 
 Read yonder, starry, blazing sky for light, 
 And seek your empire in the frigid north. 
 Look up! (The ghost points his finger to a constellation of 
 stars in the north, which looks like a word of Sanskrit.) 
 
 ERIN. Great emperor! Help me read the sign! 
 
 (There is a gurgle of giddy laughter behind the trees and 
 Fantasia enters. As she enters, the ghost disappears.) 
 
 FANTASIA. They drove me from the camp, but I came 
 back. 
 To fulfill my oath to touch your virgin lips. 
 I pretended that I took the road to town. 
 Then hid among the trees and tip-toed here. 
 The pretty boy is captive on parole, — 
 Perhaps he needs a comrade in the dark? 
 
 ERIN. I need no comrade but my own sad thoughts. 
 And least of all a courtesan. Begone! 
 
 FANTASIA. Your tone is milder than t was before, — 
 Your indignant pride was for your auditors. 
 Come now, the night is soft and warm and sweet. 
 No one listens here; our lips can meet 
 As softly as the falling blossoms touch 
 The ground that waits their perfume to receive. 
 
 ERIN. You think me mild, responsive to your guile? 
 Your shallow mind could never sound my hate. 
 My loathing is so large my human frame 
 Cannot hold its vast and monstrous growing bulk. 
 Like a locomotive charged with boiling steam. 
 It pants to rush upon your reptile slime. 
 And crush you till existence is no more. 
 
 FANTASIA. My vow grows stronger as you speak in 
 hate, — 
 Your locomotive is frail compared to mine. 
 Now guard yourself if you can, — my arms await! 
 
 (She makes a dash towards him.) 
 
 ERIN. One fraction of an inch from where you stand, 
 And I will shoot your brains from out your head! 
 
 FANTASIA. Boaster! You nave no weapon, you are un- 
 armed ! 
 You stand upon your last defense; I come. 
 
 ERIN. You come! Well then, fall on your rotting knees. 
 And crawl, — for I am master here, I swear. 
 
 97 
 
The command is mine: and mine the reigning sonl — • 
 The greatest lump of mud that blots the globe, 
 The foul outpouring of the Nile-bed stream, 
 Must shrivel and expire before the glance 
 Of one small shinning star whose eyes can pierce 
 From Olympus to this little troubled sphere. 
 Behold! (he points to the Sanskrit constellation in the north- 
 ern sky.) You can't look up, you evil thing. 
 
 (Fantasia sinks on the ground and crawls at his feet.) 
 
 FANTASIA. Oh let me go this once! don't murder me. 
 I want to live, to live! oh let me go! 
 
 ERIN. Go and wallow in your infamy. 
 Leave me to God and His voices in the void 
 That softly whisper courage to the soul 
 Alone in temptation's ghastly wilderness. 
 
 (Exit Fantasia whimpering and crawling on her hands and 
 knees.) 
 
 ERIN. Great emperor, come and speak to me once more; 
 Tell me, is this the writing in the sky? 
 To be a king must I fight on so low a plane? 
 
 (One of the camp-fires blazes up until it is almost a con- 
 flagration, while the laughter of the officers in camp is heard 
 in the distance.) 
 
 No answer! He comes no more; the air grows dense 
 And thick with putrid breath; the august ghost 
 Cannot rest in that woman's poisoned atmosphere. 
 The fine film of his immortality must fly 
 A spot a courtesan contaminates. 
 How brightly blaze the fires of our camp. 
 So yellow, red and orange against the night. 
 While with a diamond's snowy white the stars 
 Are calling me to read a problem strange. 
 Great Powers! Is the question put to me, 
 A combat with the myriad hosts of vice? 
 Is this the riddle I must solve or die? 
 I am icy cold though all this place is warm. 
 I seem to feel the north wind's freezing blast, 
 And see myself alone in gloomy state. 
 Controlling many yet not loved by one. 
 Can I sustain a solitude so great, 
 Always be as now I stand, alone, alone! 
 (Enter Knolles with stealthy step.) 
 
 KNOLLES. You flatter yourself to think you are alone, 
 For I stand here, and many foes besides. 
 
 CURTAIN. 
 
 ACT 3. (Scene: Dungeon in the military prison at Al- 
 catraz. A small cell. Dim daylight coming through a small 
 window, — also a small lamp burning. Erin discovered seated 
 
meditating. Sergeant Sweeney standing up anxiously peer- 
 ing through the window. Six months later.) 
 
 SWEENEY. T hope, Lieutenant, that your freedom is 
 near, — 
 This is no place to hold a man like you. 
 
 ERIN. I thank you, Sergeant, you are my only friend. 
 Six months of this caged life is worse than hell. 
 It seems a thousand years since I saw the day. 
 And self-commanding, stepped out my own free way. 
 Every time a footfall sounds outside, 
 I think at last my rescue is in sight. 
 My ears attuned to this vain listening. 
 Are subtle, sharp, alert, like those of dogs. 
 Who run in chase beside the hunter's gun. 
 My eyes grow blind as my ear-nerves tingle more. 
 The very springs of life and hope it seems. 
 All centered in the sense of hearing now\ 
 AND YET NO ORDER COMES. 
 
 SWEENEY. What do you hope? 
 
 ERIN. Why surely, nothing worse than a reprimand, — 
 I did no wrong, but only seemed at fault. 
 Because a wanton woman followed me 
 Into the camp. 
 
 SWEENEY. But, sir, there was more than that,— 
 They blame you for those queer dark men round here, — 
 For Knolles with his cursed evil spells, 
 And Dollama with his prying, wicked eyes. 
 
 ERIN. I answered every unjust charge in court; 
 And looking straight with cold defiance stern 
 Into the cruel, smirking faces there, 
 I charged them all with lying and black fraud. 
 They could prove no guilt on any line they searched, 
 And yet I languish here with vermin damp, 
 And hear no word of acquittal or release. 
 
 SWEENEY (apprehensively). The case is worse than you 
 would dare suppose. 
 You have not heard that men are dying fast. 
 That day by day they are hurried to their graves. 
 The victims of those fiendish friends of yours? 
 
 ERIN. Sweeney, you do not mean that this is true? 
 Then Dollama and knolles should go to jail and hang. 
 
 SWEENEY. Not they! The officers stand in too great a 
 fear 
 Of the governments they represent, besides 
 No one can prove a murder at their hands. 
 They use no poison, bludgeon, knife .^or gun. 
 But just their wits infernally combined. 
 We never know who will be the next to fall, — 
 And you are held to be enchanted, weird. 
 
Because they had no art to conquer you. 
 
 You walked right out from their dark magic hold, 
 
 And so, there is a rumor that you stand 
 
 In sympathy with these bold devils' work. 
 
 ERIN. Sweeney, you are more a man than many men 
 Who wear the shoulder straps, — you are the first 
 To tell me in what maddening labyrinth 
 Our army is entangled. I prayed for light; 
 I begged with all my breath and heart and soul, 
 For just one word of explanation, to clear 
 The clouds of doubt that hung upon my brain 
 Like curtains of black velvet which, with jet 
 Embroidered, shut out every gleam of sun, 
 And oppressed me with their sombre funeral weight. 
 My will alone, and just tne flickering glimpse 
 Of some far goal I yet must strive to reach. 
 Sustained me on the brink of smiling death. 
 And now you tell me in what plight they stand, 
 How menaced by a power they cannot see. 
 And have no means to measure, my bosom heaves 
 With deepest pity. I yearn to break my bonds. 
 To rise once more, in enchantment strong and free, 
 To lead them on to some far height unwon, 
 And march with dazzling banners streaming blithe. 
 Right to the battle ice of the Arctic pole. 
 
 SWEENEY. Lieutenant, I know their only hope is you, 
 And yet they leave you to a prison fate. 
 
 (Enter Eraser in full-dress uniform.) 
 
 ERASER. Erin, my boy, it is sad to see you here. 
 We have come to make an official call to-day 
 Upon the colonel of your island jail. 
 I ran away to have a talk with you. 
 You must be eager for the Presidio news. 
 Helgolia Crook is now the bride of .Jones! 
 
 ERIN. How can that be? Jones did not lose his bet! 
 
 ERASER. I was not there to hear the bet, but know 
 Its history; and no one else was there, 
 To see you win or lose for him, poor chap! 
 And yet it is current talk you ruined him, — 
 Fantasia swears she won a midnight kiss. 
 From you on parole in the summer scented wood. 
 And Knolles claims he heard your meeting lips. 
 
 ERIN. Once more, I say, they lie and lie and lie! 
 I would trust them less than ashes that careless, dead, 
 Sweep from a former majesty of fire, 
 To ignominy in sewer depths, down sunk 
 Amid the rubbish pouring to the sea. 
 Unhappy, aimless, sad, undone and ill, 
 Our men are sick with a fate of ponderous gloom, 
 
 100 
 
And vent their rage upon the innocent. 
 They kill the very one whose ready arm 
 Would help them to a fairer field, and fame 
 That always comes upon the heels of right. 
 
 FRASER. To rail is useless now the deed is done; 
 Helgolia like a clumsy elephant, 
 Is now a member of our fighting hosts. 
 With endless vigilance she goads and prods 
 The luckless ofiicers, poor Jones the worst! 
 She threatens to bring her clan of petticoats 
 To overwhelm the feeble race of men. 
 And laugh and hiss at an army in retreat, 
 Before the Amazons of the modern time. 
 
 (Enter Col. Cummings.) 
 
 CUMMINGS. A jolly jail this seems to be young men, 
 You sit and chat as if you were on leave 
 To indulge your folloy to the last extent. 
 
 FRASER. Erin is here in silent loneliness; 
 I thought he might enjoy a talk with me. 
 
 CUMMINGS. HE MIGHT ENJOY A TALK! Why should 
 he enjoy? 
 It is time he learnt to suffer through and through. 
 To bear a soldier's meed of smarting pain. 
 An officer disgraced has not the right 
 Even to name in thought the word "enjoy." 
 
 ERIN. Colonel, you speak as if I had not paid 
 My price of bitter suffering for a wrong, 
 I truly never even dreamed of doing. 
 
 CUMMINGS. What insolence to speak in self -excuse! 
 You who have so tarnished our fair army fame, 
 And sold your regiment to contempt and scorn! 
 The dungeon is too soft a place for you, 
 You should be taken to the open field, 
 And before a thousand troops assembled there. 
 Whipped till all your skin turned black and blue! 
 
 ERIN. Such brutal discipline is obsolete. 
 It is enough that I have languished here 
 Six months on prison fare and in suspense. 
 Not daring to hope my sentence would be light, 
 Or that for all my perfect innocence, 
 I should escape with the general's reprimand. 
 
 CUMMINGS. A reprimand? You should be lashed and 
 stung 
 To the very bone; through you we are abased. 
 In the eyes of the curious public staring hard. 
 They joke because our officers are gay, 
 And loll in camp with women of lewd fame. 
 They sneer because we seem so helpless, weak 
 In the hands of two fanatics from the East. 
 
 101 
 
Already fifteen deaths of enlisted men, j 
 
 And desertions numbering in the hundreds, tell 
 
 How near we stand to crash and public shame. 
 
 As colonel of the regiment, the blame 
 
 Falls down on me: the general scowls, and swears 
 
 We must conquer every foe, without, within. 
 
 And you who are the cause of all, go first. 
 
 ERIN. Is that the general's word you bring to me? 
 CUMMINGS. He has sent no order, but I know his mind. 
 ERIN (standing up angrily). Then how dare you tftke upon 
 yourself the task 
 Of flogging me with your petty, fiery tongue? 
 
 CUMMINGS. You add the crime of questioning what I 
 say? 
 Insubordination! Sergeant here I -At once! 
 
 (Sweeney advances.) 
 Put this man in irons and keep him so. 
 (Exit Cummings.) 
 
 FRASER. I shall have to leave you now, -his temper is 
 up. 
 And any one of us may tumble next. 
 (Exit Eraser.) 
 
 SWEENEY. Lieutenant. 1 hate to do this ugly work, 
 But you know my orders are exact, precise. 
 
 ERIN. Sergeant, your duty: a soldier must obey. 
 Although sometimes the natural man springs up. 
 As it did just now in me, and flings away 
 The habit of a duteous discipline. 
 
 (Sweeney places Gabriel in irons which he picks up from 
 a corner of the cell.) 
 
 ERIN. I scarcely know which jagged path to choose; 
 One way lies a soldier's first instinct; 
 Just one small wheel within the mechanism 
 Of the mighty war-machine, he should go round 
 And round and smoothly fill his duty out 
 While the levers and the pulleys throb and pant 
 With the effort of the great concerted work. 
 And yet a soldier is also a man, 
 A soul that trembling, quivering, leaps to God, 
 And prays that other men howe'er they stand 
 Upon high pinnacles of the world's esteem. 
 Should still be true and kind and just, — not beasts! 
 It is better not to live than to live a thing 
 Without the spirit's rich informing breath, 
 Without those precious echoes of distant song 
 That whisper hope divine to ebbing hope. 
 Dollama held that view, — that men should die 
 If they could not prove their worth and right to live! 
 They say I am like him, — oh no! oh no! 
 
 102 
 
I would kill iH) men but those base-born and vile 
 
 Who would trample out the battalions of the Truth. 
 
 In vain I say what I would do, I — I — 
 
 A criminal in irons without a friend, 
 
 .\ccused of a soldier's worst dishonor, shame, 
 
 In bringing to disgrace the flag 1 love. 
 
 How poor am I! How small! Why who am 1? 
 
 (Enter Ingram.) 
 
 INGRAM. You are a king! 
 
 ERIN. Ingram, my friend, you jest! 
 
 INGRAM. You think that I could jest when every day 
 1 wake and wonder if it is the last time 
 My eyes shall open on the unrolling morn, 
 The stately progress of the friendly sun, 
 The familiar faces of men at toil and play, 
 Who live unconscious of any threatening doom. 
 
 ERIN. An officer who is held in high esteem, 
 What can you fear? 
 
 INGRAM. Dollama's baleful eyes. 
 And Knolles' will; behind them Orientals 
 Many millions deep and demons teeming too. 
 Are poised; their destruction darts like poisoned knives 
 Are aimed at our very hearts. I run and cringe 
 And would rather yield myself to a twelve-inch gun 
 Than to the avenging hate that glittering keen 
 Makes Dollama's eyes look like the forts of hell! 
 
 ERIN. Loaded down with chains, what can I do? 
 
 INGRAM. You alone resist his midnight spell. 
 The others die, — full twenty in their graves 
 Already lie; — or run and hide like me. 
 Therefore Gabriel Erin, you are king! 
 
 ERIN. Your satire ripples through my quivering nerves, 
 Like a deadly virus working in the veins, 
 Or acid in a river's bed whose streams 
 From clear transparent blue to yellow turn. 
 A KING! I AM A SLAVE! 
 
 (Enter Jones, like the others in full-dress uniform.) 
 
 JONES. Far less than I! 
 Through you, to whom I gave a faith new-born, 
 A faith our very flag could not arouse, 
 I find myself in a jail, compared to which 
 This is a bower with festal roses twined. 
 Helgolia married me! 
 
 ERIN. It was not my fault! 
 Fantasia tempted me in the evening wood, 
 Like a serpent coiling, crushing freedom's heart. 
 If I dared to speak of things so holy, high, 
 I would tell you how borne up aloft in soul 
 I seemed to leave the clogging earth behind, 
 
 103 
 
And win a kinship in the Olympian host. 
 Against this transcendental mood of mine. 
 She had no strength, but crawling left my feet. 
 And still they believed her word and distrusted me! 
 
 JONES. If you knew the daily anguish of my life, 
 You would have pity. Helgolia holds the whip 
 From dawn to dawn with her malicious hands. 
 She thrusts her lance in Bowpoint's very face: 
 Enraged, he threatens to make me pay the price. 
 
 ERIN. Why, oh why did you marry her? So weak! 
 
 JONES. I felt I must; my word was given; she pressed; 
 We had no proof of your innocence, — I feared 
 The leer of Knolles' wrath and thought I saw 
 An opening grave: a grave that yearned to suck 
 My body in, the body of a man 
 Not trained to anything but happy sport. 
 I love to live! to live! to laugh! to laugh! 
 I cannot stand this grinding pain! I can't! 
 
 (He covers his face with his hands and cries.) 
 
 ERIN. You must conquer her, diminish her ugly force. 
 Oh, if one moment, I could stand unbound, 
 I would fling myself with the charge of a volley fire, 
 Or rockets that blaze like lightning through the sky, 
 Upon the foes that turn us all to curs. 
 I would again defy authority, 
 And take from Bowpoint his entire command. 
 A thousand wells of being spring in me, 
 As if from my very heart would now come forth, 
 A deluge to engulf the sinning world. 
 
 INGRAM. Gabriel, brave lad, I yet will crown you king! 
 
 JONES. Be careful! I heard some footsteps in the hall. 
 Bowpoint is here to-day, — he might hear our talk. 
 
 ERIN. Do you think Bowpoint could intimidate a man 
 Whom already frenzy claims her own, 
 Who unjustly shackled for a fictitious crime. 
 Is lower in the scale of army rank 
 Than the recruit who first dons the uniform? 
 Injustice makes me strong; my sinews strain, 
 Until I seem another Samson with arms 
 That could pull down these very iron walls. 
 
 (There is a clatter of swords and sound of voices and the 
 door opens to admit Bowpoint, who looks unusually pompous 
 in his full-dress uniform. He is accompanied by Cummings. 
 Bitter, Eraser and several other officers who are at his heels 
 in the most servile manner. Ingram and Jones shrink back 
 when they see the general.) 
 
 BOWPOINT. Gabriel Erin, come forward here at once; 
 I want to look upon your presumptuous face, 
 The face of one who wears dishonor's cloak, 
 
 104 
 
Yet makes a foolish boast he will be king! 
 Some rumors of your rash ambitious spring 
 Are going the rounds of every army post, — 
 YOU! a young lieutenant from the Point, 
 Would grasp a sceptre far too high for me! 
 
 ERIN (facing him). Am I to blame because you spent your 
 youth 
 In obedience measured out in petty rules, 
 Instead of aspiration towards a goal 
 The ages indicate as one sublime? 
 Come fight with me, — it is not too late for you. 
 Lend me experience, — I'll give my soul. 
 We straggle not for a kingdom occupied, 
 But for a land as yet unclaimed, unwon. 
 By leader daring to carve a virgin path. 
 
 BOW^POINT. Impertinent youth! you only forge new 
 chains. 
 The Secretary of War has set his seal 
 ITpon this order I received to-day. 
 You are no longer in our army ranks, 
 But leave forever after serving here 
 Six months in labor and confinement strict. 
 
 ERIN. You cannot mean to close the army doors 
 Against my future life, — to turn me out 
 Into the friendless streets where no one cares 
 For country, honor, glory and the flag? 
 
 BOWPOINT. The order is couched in less elaborate 
 terms; 
 Dismissal; the word is plain. 
 
 ERIN. They think it wrong 
 To be of earnest purpose, strong and true, 
 To wish to serve with all one's soul and might? 
 Like knights who dashed with sharpened spears of steel 
 Into the lists where barbarian hosts advanced 
 With yells of pagan wrath, I held myself alert. 
 For reward, though innocent, I am in jail. 
 And now deprived of the very chance to fight! 
 
 BOWPOINT. I wish no argument from you, young man; 
 But you are not deprived of any chance. 
 For the whole wide world is just a battlefield! 
 Barbarian hosts are never still but swarm 
 Like pests of noxious beasts. Go out, — leave us! 
 You say you long to win the martyr's crown. 
 Then win it from antagonists so strong. 
 That compared with you, the little Iliad men 
 Had simple play with enemies of sand. 
 
 ERIN. Must I go forth without a friend, a cent? 
 I have no means to win my daily bread. 
 When once I doff the protecting coat of blue! 
 
 105 
 
BOWPOINT. Expect no aid from me: 1 have none to give. 
 Dishonored and disgraced, — an outcast, — go! 
 And ma.v tlie curse of our united liate 
 Pursue you in vv^hatever slums you hxde! 
 
 CUM MINGS. It seems to me his sentence is most light. 
 Ten years would be a fitter term in jail 
 Than six short paltry months! 
 
 BITTER. Just what I think! 
 
 ERIN. But then in jail the prisoners are fed: 
 Without they run upon starvation's brink. 
 I am sorry boys to leave you thus in shame. 
 I am sorry Jones you suffer for my sake. 
 Remember me a friend, — ■ 
 
 JONES (shrinking back). No friend of mine! 
 
 ERIN. Eraser, before you go, you will shake my hand? 
 
 ERASER. The general no longer holds you for a friend. 
 \o more can I. 
 
 ERIN. You all desert me then? 
 Ingram, not you, you urged me on and on. 
 And pointed out an awful courage climb. 
 Just say that in your thoughts you follow me. 
 And wish that I may conquer even this,- - 
 The loss of money, friends and dearest fame. 
 
 INGRAM. My duty to the general must preclude 
 The touch of softness you implore. 
 
 ERIN. I die! 
 
 CUM MINGS. The hour is late, — we are wasting precious 
 time 
 In sentiment for a dishonored man! 
 
 BOWPOINT. Quite true! 
 It is time to go! The sergeant must keep guard. 
 
 CUMMINGS. Sergeant, remember, hold your prisoner 
 close! 
 
 (Exit all the officers, while Sergeant Sweeney advances 
 and stands guard.) 
 
 ERIN. Sweeney, and now you turn? 
 
 SWEENEY. I am not like them. 
 A man as poor as I can afford a friend. 
 And even if I go to jail myself, 
 I still will cling to you. 
 
 ERIN. You save my life! 
 Just now it seemed that I should die of hate. 
 Did ever in the whole creation's span 
 A man have such a debt of hate as I? 
 My imagination reels to take it in. 
 My feeble weight is hurled against a wall 
 As high as Himalayas tops up-piled 
 Upon the frowning Andes and the Alps, 
 With our own brave Rockies looming still above 
 
 106 
 
All view of simple mortal sight. • 
 
 SWEENEY. Sweet hate! 
 1( is all that is left to the man beneath the hoof 
 Of bloody tyranny full armed and fierce. 
 What would you do? 
 
 ERIN. Why hate till stiff with hate, 
 My vengeance grows to elephantine size; 
 My inmost heart of hearts in anger steeped 
 Will fling its rage against Dollama's breast. — 
 Dollama who most wished to see me die; 
 And Knolles, who tried to execute that thought. 
 I would throw from some high shivering ice-bound cliff 
 To an abyss of crumbling carrion down below. 
 Fantasia should make a tryst with relentless death. 
 And Helgolia beat her head on a padded cell. 
 
 SWEENEY. You say no word about your fickle friends 
 The traitors who wear the shoulder straps with you? 
 
 ERIN, I do not forget! Alone I oppose their might! 
 I, single, shackled and disgraced, will fight 
 Their whole concerted force of men and arms. 
 
 SWEENEY. You mean the officers, not us poor men? 
 
 ERIN. No, no; for if I win and gain a realm, 
 Where absolute my very word will reign, 
 1 will take you with me, and all the poor 
 Who stagger under corruption's brazen heels. 
 
 SWEENEY. Lieutenant, your realm is won: we will rebel. 
 Trust me: ten thousand men will raise their guns 
 Against the tyranny of those in power. 
 Old Bowpoint first, and then the rest you hate! 
 
 ERIN. Sweeney, stop, I thought I heard a voice. 
 
 SWEENEY, I will go and search the corridor without. 
 
 (Exit Sweeney.) 
 
 ERIN. That voice! The emperor calls to me once more! 
 
 A VOICE (sepulchral and faint, but emphatic). Though 
 they burn and slay you, still be just! 
 
 ERIN (falling on his knees). It is ordained 1 should be 
 kind to them. 
 Although they torture me with every ill. 
 Not enough I have forsworn all joy and love. 
 And vowed myself to some great end unknown. 
 I must be just to those who murder me? 
 
 THE VOICE. Like me you must be just. 
 
 (Enter Sweeney.) 
 
 SWEENEY. I heard no voice. 
 
 (Tableau, Erin half standing up, half on his knees with an 
 acute listening expression, and Sweeney looking puzzled.) 
 
 CURTAIN. 
 
 ACT 4. A year later. (Scene: A circus tent in San Fran- 
 
 107 
 
Cisco, tiers of seats. Lights turned low. A few early spec- 
 tators seated, A ring in the center set for a prize-fight 
 Jones, Fraser and Ingram discovered in a conversational 
 group. They are dressed in civilian costume, with soft felt 
 hats pulled over their eyes, so that at a distance they are 
 unrecognizable.) 
 
 INGRAM. I feel ashamed to cower in this place, 
 Yet hate to think the boy is all alone. 
 
 FRASER. The prize-ring is a very low pursuit; — ■ 
 I suppose he found no other work to do. 
 
 JONES. Helgolia, with her cruel, lynx-like eyes, 
 Was swift upon his track: she glosed the doors 
 Of every other line of work for him. 
 You know her influence is alarming, great; 
 Her wishes reach like subways through the ground 
 To the remotest spheres of the commercial maze. 
 She vows to humiliate the race of men, 
 Claimmg that they excel but as mere brutes. 
 
 INGRAM. Erin then was forced to starve or fight? 
 
 JONES. Dollama goaded him to coward death. 
 With bravery unquenched he took this way. 
 The test to-night is with a giant black, 
 A negro full three hundred pounds in weight. 
 
 INGRAM. He is going to win, — the goal is not yet lost! 
 
 FRASER. Was ever coming king beset like this? 
 
 JONES. And yet you have no pity for my plight! 
 There is no bottom depth of hell like mine, — 
 An abject, humble thing, I kneel to her, 
 And beg that she will stay her iron hand. 
 She laughs and calls me weakling, slave and fool, 
 And boasts she holds the army in her grasp. 
 That through my supine feebleness we stand 
 In discredit at home and in contempt abroad. 
 
 INGRAM. Dollama does not love your wife? 
 
 JONES. Nor us! 
 We cannot sell ourselves to him for fear 
 Of her malignant tentacles! 
 
 INGRAM. Will he 
 Be here to-night? ' 
 
 FRASER. Of course: we must retreat, 
 Or run a chance of meeting Bitter's fate. 
 
 INGRAM. He still lies low? 
 
 FRASER. He cannot live a day. 
 In that small, futile way of his, he flung 
 Defiance at Dolama's creed: at once. 
 The Orientals with mysterious flame 
 Rushed upon his poor frail bark of life. 
 Dollama shot a glance of withering hate. 
 With eye-beams which are like jets of scalding steam; 
 
 108 
 
Then Knolles' will like a blasting battery 
 Struck the captain sheer upon the head. 
 WE want to live! 
 
 JONES. You can't saj' that of me! 
 
 INGRAM. Some people come this way, let us withdraw. 
 
 (The officers withdraw to one side of the stage, with their 
 hats drawn over their faces. Enter Erin and ex-sergeant 
 Heinz.) 
 
 HEINZ. Lieutenant, I hope your nerve is in good trim. 
 
 ERIN. Sergeant, I scarcely know the word called "fear.' 
 Relentless Destiny has placed me here, 
 Wedged me tight as could my coffin walls. 
 Huge blocks of granite press upon three sides, — 
 They crush me into ignominious death, 
 Or else I take the one remaining path. 
 
 HEINZ. This African will fall like spongy clay 
 Before your athlete's arm. I know your past. 
 Sweeney told me all your battle-list. 
 
 ERIN. Ah, Sweeney is too good a friend, too kind, 
 He, within the ranks and you out here, 
 Are just my two supports, the slender planks 
 That keep me floating on this sea of pain. 
 Were other men like you, why then this tent. 
 Would turn to Nature's soft enfolding arms, 
 To trees with branches stretched in soaring prayer 
 And soft caressing of the god of hearts. 
 
 HEINZ. Don't speak like that, Lieutenant, you make me 
 cry. 
 Were all men like you, the golden age would come. 
 Instead of fighting for our daily bread, 
 We should be building temples to the sun. 
 A woman comes this way, — of ill-fame no doubt, — • 
 No other enters in a prize-ring tent. 
 
 (Enter Fantasia. She is gowned in a variegated costume 
 of many shades of magenta and pink with a hat made to 
 imitate a golden butterfly.) 
 
 FANTASIA. Gabriel Erin, I must speak with you. 
 
 ERIN. Sergeant, withdraw. Be ready when I call. 
 
 (Exit Heinz.) 
 
 FANTASIA. You despise me, yet I could not keep away. 
 
 ERIN. You have no pride to come where you are despised. 
 
 FANTASIA. What has pride to do with a hope like mine? 
 
 ERIN. What have you to do with such a thought? 
 Hope grows but in religion's chastened soil, 
 The finest bloom and blush of the aspiring soul 
 When it throws aside the dross of low desire, 
 And strains to see a holy vision's light. 
 
 FANTASIA. But hope grows also with a sweet desire. 
 I hope to see your lofty aim o'erturned, 
 
 109 
 
Your arduous path of pain abandoned quite. 
 And you asleep, contented in my arms. 
 
 ERIN. Although I stand within the shade of doom. 
 Confronted with a dark, colossal task, 
 I almost laugh to hear you so presume. 
 When I have stood a thousand tests deep-cut 
 Into my very flesh and heart of hearts; 
 When I have forsworn the sweetest birth of youth. 
 The chance to clasp my arms about a wife. 
 One who should be so pure and fair and high. 
 The very angels would adore her truth. 
 Do you think T could be trapped by one like you? 
 
 FANTASIA. Why yes! For the very reason that you 
 
 name 
 
 Bereft of every softening human touch, 
 Condemned to fight with the lowest of the low. 
 Jeered by a rabble indifferent to your life, 
 Forsaken by your friends, disgraced, alone. 
 With a far-off goal you can no longer see, 
 One thing is sure: you will lose your hope and die. 
 Or turn to me! I wait! 
 
 ERIN: If I were rich, 
 I would buy my freedom at least from your foul taunts. 
 Enough I face an ordeal of many men, 
 Combined to keep me on the anguish rack, 
 Without your putrid presence here. I know 
 That money is the only cure for you. 
 
 FANTASIA. If you win to-night, you will be rich enough 
 Even to pay for me. My price is high. 
 Helgolia's service is a princely one; 
 Every man corrupted means a gown 
 Worked in the latest Paris mode. You see 
 That the loss of my persuasions beguiling fond 
 Is a luxury, yet one you may afford, 
 If you win the victor's purse. 
 
 ERIN (with contempt). If I win the purse! 
 Do you think I do this hideous work for GOLD? 
 It is just for daily bread I strive, and life. 
 And for one other thing, a little thing. 
 Called Pride, a pride of race, of self-respect. 
 And Honor that beats in me although denied 
 Bv every other living soul. 
 
 >AN1'ASIA. You fool! 
 .lust kiss me now to help you in the fight! 
 
 ERIN. I would rather kiss the carcass of a snake, 
 Or waste of slime that fills the ocean's bed, 
 Than concede one tiny wavering thought to you. 
 
 FANTASIA. Then you must pay! You will be rich to 
 night. 
 
 110 
 
ERIN. Release your grip of shame, — yoii shall have the 
 purse. 
 
 FANTASIA. Well said! How strange a thing is this same 
 pride 
 That you will risk your very health and life 
 To win a prize you must resign to me! 
 Farewell, — until you have the purse. 
 
 (Exit Fantasia.) 
 
 ERIN. And now 
 To close my eyes to all the shouting crowd. 
 And keep my aching nerves as still as stone, 
 With Marcus Aurelius for my mentor, guide, 
 The memory of the speaking stars above, 
 And the strange sweet voice that, piercing like a flute, 
 Through the silence of my empty prison cell. 
 Commanded me to live for justice's sake 
 Although no bright reward should glimmer through 
 The dim, dull future years. 
 
 (Enter Dollama and Knolles.) 
 
 DOLLAMA. Good evening. 
 You are ready for this jetty Hercules? 
 
 ERIN. As ready now as at any other time. 
 
 DOLLAMA. Knolles has a bet against your side. 
 He says you are foredoomed to fall to-night. 
 
 ERIN. Let Knolles look to his own account, not mine. 
 
 KNOLLES. I do: that is why I think you should be dead. 
 Although Dollama and I have run a course 
 Of crimson crime, with trophies of the dead, 
 Who have perished simply by our brain and will, 
 Untouched by any implement of war. 
 We have not conquered in the far.aest field, 
 Until we conquer you and the champion. 
 This Davis has the largest muscle known. 
 Besides his thickest hide of ebony: 
 You stand alone for nerve high-strung and fine. 
 And thus we feel too poor in our own esteem. 
 Till we have slain you both. 
 
 DOLLAMA. So while you fight, 
 We will use our potent arts to make you fail. 
 
 ERIN. It is not fair! You handicap too much! 
 
 DOLLAMA. Of course! We never claimed that we were 
 fair. 
 We pursue our way unchecked and unabashed. 
 Our force makes right: the feeble fall and die. 
 
 ERIN. I see it is not single combat here. 
 To-night I meet this Davis of broad girth. 
 While in my mind I fight your vile designs. 
 I vowed I would be like Dollama in black art. 
 So Knolles learn that I have willed your death. 
 
DOLLAMA. The crucial hour is near. 
 
 (Supernumeraries enter and turn up the lights, while a 
 crowd of ruffianly looking men begin to file in an take the 
 seats. Dollama and Knolles take seats near the prize ring. 
 Exit Erin. Enter Bowpoint, Cummings and Helgolia. Bow- 
 point and Cummings, like the junior officers in civilian suits 
 and disguising soft hats.) 
 
 HELGOLIA. This is immense! 
 I am glad I came if it is considered odd. 
 
 CUMMINGS. I would not have come if I had not hoped 
 to see 
 The triumph of our army discipline. 
 No negro can hold out against such worth. 
 Such a perfect mechanism of brain and brawn. 
 
 BOWPOINT (to Heloglia). I came to see the downfall of 
 your cause. 
 
 if he wins to-night, you must yield to him the palm; 
 No woman ever born could face such work. 
 
 HELGOLIA. He will not win; the champion is too large. 
 Selected for his giant girth and weight, 
 Unconquered yet and savage to the core, — 
 Poor Erin stands a ghastly chance. 
 
 BOWPOINT. I swear 
 That he will win to-night by all the gods 
 That from the dimmest peep of history's rise. 
 Have lent their aid to warriors in the field. 
 No woman enters in our temple door. 
 The power you claim was gained by fraud alone. 
 
 HELGOLIA. Yet you yourself are afraid of me, old man. 
 Why do you fight me through young Gabriel? 
 
 BOWPOINT. To prove to you that youth, untainted, pure 
 Full-formed in acrobatic strength, and new 
 To all the sad revealings of long years. 
 Can reach a height of supernatural calm, 
 .lust watch! although so slight and frail of build. 
 Compared with this Ethiopian pugilist. 
 He will be conqueror in the ring. Sometimes, 
 An iron chain will break in useless bits. 
 When a silken cord withstands the stiffest strain. 
 Whole tribes of saffron men fall down prostrate. 
 Before a chieftain led by heavenly fire. 
 Who uses just a film of ether's life, 
 To prove his origin divine, supreme! 
 
 HELGOLIA. You talk more like a moonstruck visionary 
 Than a general of stern command and fame. 
 Perhaps you dare to lose, then what is the price? 
 Remember once before I won a bet, 
 Against your boasted army discipline. 
 Beware you try again! 
 
 112 
 
CUMMINGS. It was not proved! 
 I do not think Fantasia kissed the lad! 
 
 HEi^GOLIA. You change your front! Your court said 
 otherwise! 
 
 BOWPOINT. The secrets of our martial game are safe, 
 From curious questioners such as you, my friend. 
 
 (There is a fanfare of trumpets, and Davis, a three hun- 
 dred pound negro, and his trainers take the ring. Bowpoint, 
 Helgolia and Cummings withdraw. The audience arranges 
 itself. Enter the referee, Erin and Heinz.) 
 
 DAVIS. I think that this will prove an easy sport. 
 
 HEINZ. Look out! good luck withdraws from those who 
 boast. 
 
 ERIN. And now to make my mind an avenging blade; 
 To strike dark Knolles where he stands in crime. 
 With' wicked thoughts intent upon my death; 
 While with my arms like swaying levers moved 
 By pulleys wrought in iron-work of hell, 
 I beat this ugly savage to the ground. 
 
 (The signal to begin is given.) 
 
 ERIN (advancing). Marcus! behold a gladiator at bay! 
 
 (Erin and Davis engage for a few moments in fierce strife. 
 Knolles and Dollama lean over the rail of the ring with an 
 expression of intense malignity and hate.) 
 
 REFEREE. Time! 
 
 (Davis and Erin both panting draw aside. Erin fixes a 
 glance of great deviltry on Knolles.) 
 
 ERIN. Juan Knolles, j^ou must surrender now! 
 
 (Knolles cringes.) 
 
 ERIN. Before I put an end to this dull clod, 
 I want to see you cringe yet more, down, DOWN! 
 
 KNOLLES. Great God! I can no longer will jour death; 
 But rather seem to wlil my own; I faint! 
 Dollama, perhaps our faith is wrong, — perhaps, — 
 
 DOLLAMA. Knolles, do not say your will is gone? 
 
 KNOLLES. My will is gone, — I see, — I see,— it's black. 
 
 (Knolles sinks down at the edge of the ring.) 
 
 REFEREE. Time! 
 
 DOLLAMA. A moment more! This man is ill. 
 
 KNOLLES (faintly). I surrender — now — you see me die. 
 — go on! 
 
 INGRAM (rushing to the front). Is he so ill? 
 
 DOLLAMA. He has willed himself to die! 
 
 INGRAM (bending over Knolles). His soul has just this 
 moment passed in flight! 
 
 (The officers and rabble crowd around. There is a scene 
 of great confusion, scrambling and shouting.) 
 
 CUMMINGS. Order! Disperse! This death ends all to- 
 night ! 
 
 113 
 
HEf^GOLIA. No! No! the fight goes on, — we have not 
 proved 
 That Erin is the stronger man! 
 
 ERIN. Not yet! 
 Come forward Davis, we will try once more. 
 Order! Stand back! The fight goes on again! 
 
 (The crowd quiet down as if by magic. Doiiama stands 
 painfully poised over the body of Knolles.) 
 
 ERIN. It seems to me this canvas lifts and swirls 
 As if by a mighty hand, upheld at will. 
 It could at will be hurled through endless space, 
 To make a parachute for human clowns; 
 And through its barrier, dense, opaque and thick, 
 I seem to see the condescending stars, 
 Shine out with beams that turn our electric lights. 
 To feeole flickering ancient candle fire. 
 Davis, we fight! 
 
 (Davis advances and strikes Erin a foul on the abdomen. 
 Erin reels, but picks himself up. They grapple fiercely for a 
 few moments, each man bleeding profusely in the face and 
 on the chest. Finally, Davis bellows like a wounded ox and 
 falls like a lump of jelly at Erin's feet. The crowd cheer 
 and bravo wildly. ) 
 
 HEINZ. Erin is the champion! 
 
 (Tableaud: Bowpoint and Cummings regard Helgolia with 
 triumphant malice. Eraser and Ingram press forward to 
 Erin. Davis is hissed and taken off the stage. Dollama re- 
 gards Erin with panic-stricken admiration.) 
 
 INGRAM. Erin, you are a soldier of white heat, 
 Far braver than old Hector we admired. 
 And with a nerve Achilles could not boast. 
 
 ERIN. Ingram! the man I loved above the rest! 
 Ingram, my comrade, friend, my brother-heart, — 
 You like me in this ring of blood and pain. 
 When you despised me in my dungeon depths! 
 Then friendship takes the track of loud success. 
 And never walks in pity's humble path! 
 
 ERASER. Your reproach cuts through our hearts: yon 
 know our rule. 
 We took the path we were compelled to take. 
 
 BOWPOINT (approaching Erin). I thought it better you 
 should fight alone. 
 Than with assistance from our sentiment. 
 The officers all loved you far too much. 
 For their own good and yours: you had to go. 
 
 ERIN. General, you are too stern for mortal man — 
 Even though T walked with feet in iron shod, 
 I still would stumble on the jagged stones. 
 Of the sharp declivity you mark for me. 
 
 114 
 
FRASER. Your task is done: we love your noble strife. 
 
 ERiW (bitterly). And take my service as your own per- 
 haps? 
 Not yet! I cannot feel at one with you, 
 While this day's foul heat is heavy on my head, 
 While my life-blood, spilled for you, in unstanched streams. 
 Dies this disgraceful field; while Knolles' corpse, 
 With upturned ghastly face accuses me. 
 
 BOWPOINT. Juan Knolles had already lived too long. 
 The hangman's noose has itched to strangle him. 
 
 ERIN. I willed his death that you might live, my friends, 
 Although you were no friends to me, but foes. 
 A Voice sweet calling in my lonely gloom, 
 Bade me be just to you whate'er you did. 
 1 seemed to see some reason in your wrath; 
 W^hile Knolles and Dollama without cause 
 Sought to fill our army burial-grounds 
 With regiments too good to stuff the earth. 
 
 INGRAM. You have delivered us from the Fiend full 
 armed, 
 Who climbing up from hissing, roaring flames, 
 And assuming human shape, had tried his best. 
 To annex poor earth to his dominions darl-:. 
 
 HELGOLIA. I wager still young Erin falls to-night, 
 When Fantasia holds him in her soothing arms. 
 
 JONES (to Helgolia). My long suffering at your hands is 
 almost done: 
 You could not do what Gabriel has done to-night. 
 
 HELGOLIA. Our marriage was the price of Erin's kiss;- 
 You cannot wipe away that moment's lust. 
 
 (Enter Fantasia.) 
 
 FANTASIA. He did not kiss m.e then and never will. 
 It was a lie to help Helgolia's cause. 
 But now I hate her worse than his pure heart. 
 Such women as I must always cling to men, 
 And never trust a woman's vicious schemes. 
 The purse to-night is fifteen thousand dollars. — 
 
 ERIN. Fantasia, vou mav claim it when you will! 
 
 HELGOLIA. HE BOUGHT YOU THEN! 
 
 FANTASIA. I tell the holy truth,— 
 Gabriel Erin, CHAMPION, IS FREE! 
 
 JONES. HELGOLIA, you have lost the game at last! 
 
 BOWPOINT. Erin, brave lad, you shall join us once again 
 
 ERIN. Not now, — a faintness grows upon my heart. 
 
 CUMMINGS. We will be ready when you call — good-night. 
 
 (The crowd has been clowly filtering out during this con 
 versation. The officers all go, followed reluctantly by Hel- 
 golia. Two guards take out the body of Knolles. Exit Fan- 
 tasia by herself. Fantasia blows a kiss to Erin as she goes 
 
 115 
 
out. Erin stands lost in thought. The lights are turned low. 
 Finally Dollama and Erin remain alone on the stage.) 
 
 DOLLAMA. Young man, I am convinced at last. 
 
 ERIN. Of what? 
 
 DOLLAMA. Your title won in grimmest battle-fraj', 
 To be a king. 
 
 ERIN. A king? I am so poor, 
 I stand bereft of everything but pride. 
 My sufferings hang about me like wet rags, 
 That do not clothe the shivering bones and skin, 
 Of the outcast beggar in the winter snow. 
 There is nothing in the world I call my own. 
 
 DOLLAMA. If you are poor, remember I am rich; 
 .lust come with me to that enchanted land 
 Beyond the Pacific's mighty, smooth expanse; 
 The land where the gods as in primeval days 
 Confide to men the secrets of their throne. 
 I think you worth the fight I have made for you; — 
 The death of many feeble men at arms, 
 Poor Bitter in his last extremity. 
 And even this mad tool of mine you killed. 
 Gabriel Erin, true and brave, you are mine! 
 
 (He stretches out his bony, claw-like hands as if to clasp 
 Erin, who springs back with a cry.) 
 
 ERIN. No, Dollama, No! I am my own! 
 However poor and weak and maimed I am. 
 Although my every pore bleeds agony, 
 I still can reign supreme o'er my own soul. 
 The winding ways you choose are not my ways, — • 
 Nor do I wander in your wizard sphere. 
 I do not kill except to save the lives 
 That, thousands deep, destroyers aim to slay. 
 I do not think like you the race runs out 
 From cowardice and fear, but rather hope 
 We are upon the brink of some new leap 
 Towards revealing of our power divine. 
 
 DOLLAMA. You and I together found that hope! 
 
 ERIN. You would take from me my tragic victory? 
 
 DOLLAMA. I love you, — I have won you, — come with me! 
 
 ERIN. Why then Dollama if you take this tone, 
 I must fight again! With the battle-rage still strong 
 Upon me, with nerves that spring to worst a foe, 
 And sinews like a constrictor's mighty coils 
 That crush an attacking enemy, I stand 
 Prepared to beat you dead at once! Come on. 
 
 (He makes the movement of attack.) 
 
 DOLLAMA. Mercy! I would not lie in Knolles' place! 
 Release your vengeance, — I will follow you. 
 
 ERIN. I do not follow you and do not wish 
 
 116 
 
That you should follow me, — I must be alone! 
 
 DOLI AMA. They will make you king, please let me come 
 with \ou! 
 
 (He kneels at Erin's feet.) 
 
 ERIN. No! Dollama, no! I walk alone. 
 
 DOLLAMA. Erin, I pray you let me come, — oh, I beg! 
 
 ERIN. Once more I say, I have the battle-rage! 
 You leave me to myself or else I fight. 
 
 DOLLAMA. Ungrateful! Fierce! I served you to no end! 
 
 (Exit Dollama.) 
 
 ERIN (alone). What devious, strange, uncommon course 
 I take; 
 So set apart from other mortal men, 
 It seems I have a fate accursed or blessed, 
 I know not which; remote and weird and odd 
 The goal of royal height they picked for me 
 On that portentous day upon the field 
 When Ingram spurred my young ambition on. 
 Oh then I was so young the world spread out 
 Like a vision painted for my sole delight. 
 And now I am so old with futile work. 
 That same sad sting of base ingratitude, 
 The smarting of my nerves with tax and strain 
 Beyond the power of any human will 
 To bear without a mad rebellious shriek 
 Against a God who lets such misery be, 
 I scarcely have the will to try to live. 
 A faintness numbs my brain — my breath is slow — ■ 
 Alive or dead, a stricken human beast, 
 Or a soul divorced from this too suffering clay, 
 Will heaven atone for all my wrong and woe? 
 How long I tried to balance Justice's scales: 
 How much I wished to see the world go right! 
 And yet degraded in the slaughter house, 
 I am no better than a bull that is gored 
 By the furious onset of the butcher tribe. 
 Will Heaven atone? 
 
 (A guard enters and turns out the lights one by one. Erin 
 sinks half reclining on the ground, with his head buried in 
 his hands in the deepest dejection. The guard seeing him 
 thus, leaves one jet feebly flickering, then after glancing a 
 moment apprehensively at Erin, he steals out on tip-toe.) 
 
 A VOICE. Your empire waits for you! 
 Do not fear but claim your own at once. 
 
 ERIN. Great Spirit, — God, — you come to me once more, — 
 What dream is this? What empire shall I claim? 
 
 THE VOICE. The one beneath the cold gray northern sky. 
 
 ERIN. But whoe'er Thou be who speakest thus. 
 Thou Knowest that I yearn for rest, for death. 
 
 117 
 
THE VOICE. Claim your empire first! 
 ERIN. Before I die! 
 
 (Half reclining, an expression of great exaltation come? 
 over his face upon which the light shines.) 
 CURTAIN. 
 
 ACT 5. (A few months later. Scene: A principality in 
 Alaska. In the background, snow-covered mountains, against 
 which is outlined a white brick building built like a castle, 
 and illuminated with so many strings of electric lights in full 
 blaze that it looks like a palace of diamonds. On its summit 
 are floating two flags, the American flag and a Crusaders' 
 flag with a white field and black Roman cross. It is high 
 noon, and the sun is shinning with a cold, white intense 
 brilliancy lighting up the snow mountains and ice-glaciers as 
 the electricity lights up the palace. The whole effect is 
 that of a fairy snow scene in the most dazzling white. Mil- 
 itary guards in a uniform of white and silver are standing at 
 the castle gates. Enter Eraser and Jones, also in the white 
 uniform, full dress with much gold and silver braid.) 
 
 ERASER. We are so trained to view of hideous things, 
 I hardly can believe this scene is real. 
 
 JONES. It is like the Christmas pantomime I loved 
 In childhood's wildly dreaming distant days. 
 I thought that army life would be like that, — 
 An effort arid a strain, but oh such sport. 
 Such clash of sparkling arms, such ceremony. 
 Such joyous hunting grounds with Glory's flag, 
 Streaming bold and sweet above our heads. 
 Like pinions of the morning in the East. 
 And some where in the midst of chase and war, 
 I thought a lovely girl would stoop to me. 
 With worship for the battles I had won, 
 And all the brave, fond love of a soldier maid. 
 I married Helgolia Crook! 
 
 ERASER. You are divorced? 
 
 JONES. Divorced, oh yes, but weakened and ashamed. 
 From that unprecedented interlude; 
 She reversed our sex, made me the weaker thing. 
 The woman dependent on a stronger arm, 
 Against her will of more than normal man. 
 
 ERASER. Erin delivered you and us from her. 
 He sent Dollama back to his strange land. 
 Where magic thrives in sooty swamps pressed down 
 Beneath the forests where the world began. 
 Juan Knolles' dust is in our own grave yaiM. 
 Poor Bitter died and hundreds of our men. 
 But we survive, — we can begin again. 
 
 JONES. We owe so much to Erin, — it makes us small 
 
 118 
 
To lean entirely on his youthful arm. 
 
 Yet he alone had earnestness enough 
 
 To plunge ahead and beat upon those walls 
 
 Of iron prejudice which ages long 
 
 Have held the world like a captive animal. 
 
 It was as if some horrid cataclysm 
 
 Had unfolded to our gaze the devil's shop 
 
 Where monsters of the night are formed and fed; 
 
 Orientals claiming that our race had sunk 
 
 Until it verged upon the monkey tribe; 
 
 And women threatening to extinguish men. 
 
 I shudder to review the path we have come. 
 
 ERASER. We have reached the top at last, — we have a 
 king, 
 Carved by us from marble white as ice; 
 And proved of justice firm, unflinching true. 
 Erin is just because he must be just. 
 He cannot break the law of his own heart. 
 Now he has won from us the rank supreme, 
 Your dream of martial splendor and delight, 
 May yet be realized. We are here today 
 For something new to this sad century, — 
 A king arisen from the lowest ranks. 
 In single combat, — the hardest test of all. 
 He has been found invincible, untouched! 
 How many times he has o'erleapt the chasm 
 Of grim inviting Death, wliose ghostlj' hands 
 Have stretched in vain to stop his beating heart. 
 
 (Enter Bowpoint, Cummings and suite. They all wear the 
 magnificent dazzling white uniform with silver and gold lace.) 
 
 CUMMINGS. The coronation comes this way at once. 
 Have you seen the crown? 
 
 (Enter Sergeant Sweeney and Sergeant Heinz, with a white 
 velvet cushion on which is a heavy crown of gold, set with 
 diamonds and pearls.) 
 
 JONES. It hurts my feeble eyes. 
 
 BOWPOINT. Although for all my rank and senior years, 
 I take a second place, I am content. 
 For he who wins the rank is one of us. 
 No daring man from civil life could gain 
 Distinction in the fields of pain we chose. 
 Our discipline gave forth its unequaled light, 
 There in the ring against the savage brute 
 Untamed before; and only many blows 
 Could bring about such fortitude as his; — 
 Where poverty and shame and suffering hung 
 With nothing on the other side but pride. 
 My men, the army is alone today, 
 As it never was before in our long run 
 
 119 
 
From the nation's infancy to this far reach. 
 
 No woman with her foul impertinent skirts 
 
 Is in this land for many miles around. 
 
 The Amazons have been overmatched by us, 
 
 Their nerve too flimsy for our champion. 
 
 The putrid kind have bent in homage low 
 
 Before a power they could not understand. 
 
 And with the fall of their dark influence 
 
 Fall many other dark intrigues they formed 
 
 Among the politicians' scheming hoide, 
 
 Asia new awakened from her sloth 
 
 Of centuries of quiet sleepiness, 
 
 Sent her best of men with armament 
 
 Of studied guile, with ^-liafts unseen to pierce 
 
 The front of our modern courage and defense 
 
 And yet today we find oui selves alone. 
 
 No breath is stirring in the northern breeze,— 
 
 The sun shines calm and still and white benign 
 
 As if approving all our battle plan. 
 
 The king comes now! 
 
 ^ Enter a military band playing "Onward, Christian Sol- 
 diers." They are followed by a company of infantry of tall 
 picked men all wearing the white uniform, and in addition to 
 the insignia of the other officers wearing a crusader's cross of 
 diamonds. They form at attention and point their lances 
 upward in the direction of the northwest. The sun shines on 
 the glint of the steel, making a particularly dazzling tableau. 
 Enter Erin from the northwest. His uniform is of white satin 
 and silver, with a breastplate of orders, the crusaders' cross 
 in diamonds, the Order of the Loyal Legion, etc., etc. His 
 left hand is on his sword, his right on his heart. He is accom- 
 panied by Ingram and two or three other officers of his pri- 
 vate suite.) 
 
 (The band ceases playing and Bowpoint steps forward.) 
 BOWPOINT. Gabriel Erin, you have won a prize 
 Never given before within our army ranks. 
 Once a lieu tenant of the lowest grade. 
 You were expelled on charges we knew were false, 
 And left to fight your way as men who fought 
 In early days of savage life, alone. 
 Without a clan or corps you could call your own. 
 Without a hint of aid, reward or hope. 
 You had a chance to rebel, — the men were yours, — 
 They loved your youth and zealous work with them. 
 You did not yield but bore the disgrace alone. 
 You have won your spurs, and more, — there is the crown. 
 It is a bauble, a symbol of your rank, 
 Yet put it on your head, and let it mean 
 All the love, that daring not to speak, 
 
 120 
 
Lies hidden in our stern and stormy breasts. 
 
 (Erin steps forward, and looks at the crown, but does not 
 put it on.) 
 
 ERIN. Dear General, and all my friends assembled here, 
 This is the sweetest moment of my life; 
 And yet its very sweetness pierces through 
 To some great pulse of pain that sobs and sighs 
 As if the sorrows of the whole sad world 
 Were being told in endless lamentation. 
 I trained myself to work without reward, 
 Just for the work's own sake and just for you. 
 I threw aside as base a goal like this. 
 And yet somehow I could not live alone. 
 I seemed to shrivel into nothingness, 
 Without your comradeship. I wanted friends! 
 The thread that held me to this mortal life 
 Was sometimes strung so finely, filmy, thin, 
 It seemed that it would snap at whisper's breath 
 Of either praise or blame. I stood prepared 
 To join those pale grey shades who wander lost 
 Between the highest heaven and this cold earth 
 They left perhaps with no regret or sigh, 
 But left to come again in gossamer 
 And draw the discontented to their host. 
 They beckoned me with insistence like a song 
 That runs forever through the tired brain. 
 And yet the thought of you stood uppermost. 
 Should I go and float like them forever astray 
 In air too thick for common eye to pierce, 
 Or should I hope to come once more to you? 
 
 INGRAM. Gabriel, you are here with us today; 
 You will forgive the wrong we have done to you, 
 Now you know the reason of our acts. 
 We wished to see you where you are today, 
 Upon a throne of lustrous, dazzling white. 
 The crown awaits, — forward! Salute the king! 
 
 (The officers and men present, including General Bowpoint, 
 salute, and the sergeants advance with the crown.) 
 
 ERIN. That crown looks heavy and yet perhaps it is light 
 Compared with other weights upon my brow. 
 A Voice bade me be just to you, my friends, 
 Ingram, I must tell you my command, — it was, — 
 "Though they burn and slay you still be just," 
 You will be that in face of every foe. 
 The word is good, and yet it seems to me, 
 I am weak to feel so full of love towards you. 
 It is not human to forgive too much, — 
 To pardon every wrong, — to crave no prize, — 
 How white the sun! How white the lights! And YOU! 
 
 121 
 
There is no woman here, — and no disgrace, — • 
 
 I think we change, — not as Dollama thought. 
 
 Towards small frail baser kind of horrid brute, 
 
 But towards a better life than yet the world 
 
 Has known, towards some white goal within the sky. 
 
 (He staggers slightly and puts his hand convulsively on 
 his heart. ) 
 
 INGRAM. Gabriel Erin,— take your crown,— we wait. 
 
 ERIN. The crown, — I cannot see it now, — nor you, 
 You seem to fade from my poor straining gaze, 
 To melt into the sunbeams' brilliant glare. 
 It is all so white,— you move like shapes of snow 
 That will dissolve with the breaking of the Spring, 
 So many men, yet none to speak to me I 
 Why there you go. the regiments marching by 
 Like phantoms of my brain! Ah there they are! 
 
 (An expression of rapt exaltation comes over his features. 
 He looks up to the sky and pulling his sword from its sheath, 
 points ecstatically upward.) 
 
 ERIN. There are the other troops who march above, — 
 The sentinels of the Olympian outpost guard. 
 The ghosts who call to me, — they are dressed in pearl. 
 Ingram,— I hope the goal is won forever, — 
 "Though they burn and slay you, still be just." 
 
 (He drops his swords and sinks back in Ingram's arms. 
 Theie is a moment of intense silence, broken by Sergeant 
 Sweeney, who gives a prolonged wail and lets the crown 
 drop.) 
 
 BOWPOINT (stepping forward and looking at Erin's- still 
 features as he lies in Ingram's arms). The king is dead. 
 Long live,— oh eternal God 
 in Heaven above, we have no other king! 
 
 (The officers drop their lances and uncover their heads as 
 the curtain slowly descends.) 
 
 CI^TAIN. 
 

 
 

 Vc." 
 
 
 ^. 
 
 
 •" o^ .... *^ 
 
 
 

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