* * *

SCENE XXIV.

FABIUS, leading in MOSCON, CLARIN, and LIVIA, as prisoners; CYPRIAN
and JUSTINA.

FABIUS. With your master and your mistress
Here remain confined together.
[Exit.

LIVIA. If THEY fancy to be Christians,
What have WE done to offend them?

MOSCON. Much: 'tis crime enough for us
That we happen to be servants.

CLARIN. Flying peril in the mountain,
I find here a greater peril.

* * * * *

SCENE XXV.

A Servant.--THE SAME.

SERVANT. The Lord Governor Aurelius
Summons Cyprian to his presence,
And Justina.

JUSTINA. Ah! how happy,
If 'tis for the wished-for ending.
Do not, Cyprian, be disheartened.

CYPRIAN. Faith, zeal, courage, all possess me:
For if life must be the ransom
Of my slavery to the devil,
He who gave his soul for thee,
Will he not give God his person?

JUSTINA. I once said that I could love thee
But in death, and since together,
Cyprian, we now must die,
What I promised I present thee.

[They are led out by the Servant.

* * * * *

SCENE XXVI.

MOSCON, LIVIA, and CLARIN.

MOSCON. How contentedly to die
They go forth.

LIVIA. Much more contented
Are we three to remain alive.

CLARIN. Not much more; for we must settle
Our account now, though I own
The occasion might be better,
And the place too, still 'twere wrong
To neglect the time that's present.

MOSCON. What account pray?

CLARIN. I have been
Absent.

LIVIA. Speak.

CLARIN. The whole of a twelvemonth,
When without my intermission
Moscon in possession held thee.
Now my quota in the business,
If we both have equal measure,
Is that I must have my year.

LIVIA. Can it be that I'm suspected
Of thus wronging thee so basely?
Why, I wept whole days together
When it was the day for weeping.

MOSCON. Yes, for I myself was present:
Every day that was not mine
She thy friendship quite respected.

CLARIN. That's a bounce; for not a tear,
When this day her house I entered,
Did she shed, and there I found thee
Sitting with her quite contented.

LIVIA. But this day is