Dido. Why you tremble so? Why you speak so wild? What you's gwine to do, missey?
Zoe. Give me the drink.
Dido. No. Who dat sick at de house?
Zoe. Give it to me.
Dido. No. You want to hurt yourself. O, Miss Zoe, why you ask ole Dido for dis pizen?
Zoe. Listen to me. I love one who is here, and he loves me—George. I sat outside his door all night—I heard his sighs—his agony—torn from him by my coming fate; and he said, "I'd rather see her dead than his!"
Dido. Dead!
Zoe. He said so—then I rose up, and stole from the house, and ran down to the bayou; but its cold, black, silent stream terrified me—drowning must be so horrible a death. I could not do it. Then, as I knelt there, weeping for courage, a snake rattled beside me. I shrunk from it and fled. Death was there beside me, and I dared not take it. O! I'm afraid to die; yet I am more afraid to live.
Dido. Die!
Zoe. So I came here to you; to you, my own dear nurse; to you, who so often hushed me to sleep when I was a child; who dried my eyes and put your little Zoe to rest. Ah! give me the rest that no master but One can disturb—the sleep from which I shall awake free! You can protect me from that man—do let me die without pain. [Music.]