ew quick hours, and all
will be as bright as if no storm had crossed our sunny days.'

'Hast seen Asriel? He says such fearful things!'

'How now?'

'Ah me! I am desolate. I have no friend.'

'Schirene!'

'They will have my blood. I know they will have my blood.'

'Indeed, an idle fancy.'

'Idle! Ask Asriel, question Ithamar. Idle! 'tis written in their
tablets, their bloody scroll of rapine and of murder. Thy death led only
to mine, and, had they hoped my bird would but have yielded his gentle
mate, they would have spared him. Ay! ay! 'tis I whom they hate, 'tis I
whom they would destroy. This form, I fear it has lost its lustre, but
still 'tis thine, and once thou saidst thou lovedst it; this form was to
have been hacked and mangled; this ivory bosom was to have been ripped
up and tortured, and this warm blood, that flows alone for thee,
that fell Jabaster was to pour its tide upon the altar of his ancient
vengeance. He ever hated me!'

'Jabaster! Schirene! Where are we, and what are we? Life, life, they
lie, that call thee Nature! Nature never sent these gusts of agony. Oh!
my heart will break. I drove him from my thought, and now she calls him
up, and now must I remember he is my-prisoner! God of heaven, God of my
fathers, is it come to this? Why did he not escape? Why must Abidan, a
common cut-throat, save his graceless life, and this great soul, this
stern and mighty being---- Ah me! I have lived long enough. Would they
had not failed, would----'

'Stop, stop, Alroy! I pray thee, love, be calm. I came to soothe thee,
not to raise thy passions. I did not say Jabaster willed thy death,
though Asriel says so; 'tis me he wars against; and if indeed Jabaster
be a man so near thy heart, if he indeed be one so necessary to thy
prosperity, and cannot live in decent order with thy slave that's here,
I know my duty, Sir. I would not have thy fortunes farred to save my
single heart, although I think 'twill break. I will go, I will die,
and deem the hardest accident of life but sheer prosperity if it profit
thee.'

'O Schirene! what wouldst thou? This, this is torture.'

'To see thee safe and happy; nothing more.'

'I am both, if thou art.'

'Care not for me, I am nothing.'

'Thou art all to me.'

'Calm thyself, my soul. It grieves me much that when I came to soothe I
have only galled thee. All's well, all's well. Say that Jabaster lives.
What then? He lives, and may he prove more duteous than before; that