be spelling her Arabic scrawls and pot-hooks. But I
must carry off my prize as robbers do, and not think of sharing the
booty before I am free from danger, and out of eye-shot from the other
windows. If her wit be as poignant as her eyes, I am a double slave.
Our northern beauties are mere dough to these; insipid white earth,
mere tobacco pipe clay, with no more soul and motion in them than a
fly in winter.
Here the warm planet ripens and sublimes
The well-baked beauties of the southern climes.
Our Cupid's but a bungler in his trade;
His keenest arrows are in Africk made. [_Exit._

ACT III.

SCENE I.--_A Terrace Walk; or some other public place in the castle of
Alcazar._

_Enter Emperor_ MULEY-MOLUCH, _and_ BENDUCAR.

_Emp._ Married! I'll not believe it; 'tis imposture;
Improbable they should presume to attempt,
Impossible they should effect their wish.

_Bend._ Have patience, till I clear it.

_Emp._ I have none:
Go bid our moving plains of sand lie still,
And stir not, when the stormy south blows high:
From top to bottom thou hast tossed my soul,
And now 'tis in the madness of the whirl,
Requir'st a sudden stop? unsay thy lie;
That may in time do somewhat.

_Bend._ I have done:
For, since it pleases you it should be forged,
'Tis fit it should: far be it from your slave
To raise disturbance in your sacred breast.

_Emp._ Sebastian is my slave as well as thou;
Nor durst offend my love by that presumption.

_Bend._ Most sure he ought not.

_Emp._ Then all means were wanting:
No priest, no ceremonies of their sect;
Or, grant we these defects could be supplied,
How could our prophet do an act so base,
So to resume his gifts, and curse my conquests,
By making me unhappy? No, the slave,
That told thee so absurd a story, lied.

_Bend._ Yet till this moment I have found him faithful:
He said he saw it too.

_Emp._ Dispatch; what saw he?

_Bend._ Truth is, considering with what earnestness
Sebastian pleaded for Almeyda's life,
Enhanced her beauty, dwelt upon her praise--

_Emp._ O stupid, and unthinking as I was!
I might have marked it too; 'twas gross and palpable.

_Bend._ Methought I traced a lover ill disguised,
And sent my spy, a sharp observing slave,
To inform me better, if I guessed aright.
He told me, that he saw Sebastian's page
Run cross the marble square, who soon returned,
And after him there lagged a puffing friar;
Close wrapt he bore some secret in