d?--Avoid him: If we meet,
It must be like the crush of heaven and earth,
To involve us both in ruin. [_Exit._

_Bend._ 'Twas a bare saving game I made with Dorax;
But better so than lost. He cannot hurt me;
That I precautioned: I must ruin him.--
But now this love; ay, there's the gathering storm!
The tyrant must not wed Almeyda: No!
That ruins all the fabric I am raising.
Yet, seeming to approve, it gave me time;
And gaining time gains all. [_Aside._
[BENDUCAR _goes and waits behind the Emperor.
The Emperor,_ SEBASTIAN, _and_ ALMEYDA,
_advance to the front of the stage: Guards
and Attendants._

_Emp._ to _Seb._ I bade them serve you; and, if they obey not,
I keep my lions keen within their dens,
To stop their maws with disobedient slaves.

_Seb._ If I had conquered,
They could not have with more observance waited:
Their eyes, hands, feet,
Are all so quick, they seem to have but one motion,
To catch my flying words. Only the alcayde
Shuns me; and, with a grim civility,
Bows, and declines my walks.

_Emp._ A renegade:
I know not more of him, but that he's brave,
And hates your Christian sect. If you can frame
A farther wish, give wing to your desires,
And name the thing you want.

_Seb._ My liberty;
For were even paradise itself my prison,
Still I should long to leap the crystal walls.

_Emp._ Sure our two souls have somewhere been acquainted
In former beings; or, struck out together,
One spark to Afric flew, and one to Portugal.
Expect a quick deliverance: Here's a third, [_Turning to_ ALMEYDA.
Of kindred sold to both: pity our stars
Have made us foes! I should not wish her death.

_Alm._ I ask no pity; if I thought my soul
Of kin to thine, soon would I rend my heart-strings,
And tear out that alliance; but thou, viper,
Hast cancelled kindred, made a rent in nature,
And through her holy bowels gnawed thy way,
Through thy own blood, to empire.

_Emp._ This again!
And yet she lives, and only lives to upbraid me!

_Seb._ What honour is there in a woman's death!
Wronged, as she says, but helpless to revenge;
Strong in her passion, impotent of reason,
Too weak to hurt, too fair to be destroyed.
Mark her majestic fabric; she's a temple
Sacred by birth, and built by hands divine;
Her souls the deity that lodges there;
Nor is the