Not now--not now, dear comrades. Spare
my feelings in this trying hour. An earldom has this day fallen to
my lot--a rich domain on which no malediction rests. Share it
between you, my children; become good citizens; and if for ten
human beings that I have destroyed you make but one happy, my soul
may yet be saved. Go--no farewell! In another world we may meet
again--or perhaps no more. Away! away! ere my fortitude desert me.
[Exeunt both, with downcast countenances.]

SCENE IX.

And I, too, am a good citizen. Do I not fulfil the extremity of
the law? Do I not honor the law? Do I not uphold and defend it?
I remember speaking to a poor officer on my way hither, who was
toiling as a day-laborer, and has eleven living children. A
thousand ducats have been offered to whoever shall deliver up the
great robber alive. That man shall be served. [Exit.]

CHARLES. Oh! fool that I was, to fancy that I could amend the world by
misdeeds and maintain law by lawlessness! I called it vengeance and
equity. I presumed, O Providence! upon whetting out the notches of thy
sword and repairing thy partialities. But, oh, vain trifling! here I
stand on the brink of a fearful life, and learn, with wailing and
gnashing of teeth, that two men like myself could ruin the whole edifice
of the moral world. Pardon--pardon the boy who thought to forestall
Thee; to Thee alone belongeth vengeance; Thou needest not the hand of
man! But it is not in my power to recall the past; that which is ruined
remains ruined; what I have thrown down will never more rise up again.
Yet one thing is left me whereby I may atone to the offended majesty of
the law and restore the order which I have violated. A victim is
required--a victim to declare before all mankind how inviolable that
majesty is--that victim shall be myself. I will be the death-offering!

ROBBERS. Take his sword from him--he will kill himself.

CHARLES. Fools that ye are! doomed to eternal blindness! Think ye
that one mortal sin will expiate other mortal sins? Do you suppose that
the harmony of the world would be promoted by such an impious discord?
(Throwing his arms at their feet.) He shall have me alive. I go to
deliver myself into the hands of justice.

ROBBERS. Put him in chains! he has lost his senses!

CHARLES. Not that I have any doubt but that justice would find me
speedily enough if the powers above so ordained it. But