Stu. Ay, and with reason. We are discovered.
Bates. I feared as much, and therefore cautioned you; but You were peremptory.
Stu. Thus fools talk ever; spending their idle breath on what is past; and trembling at the future. We must be active. Beverley, at worst, is but suspicious; but Lewson's genius, and his hate to Me, will lay all open. Means must be found to stop him.
Bates. What means?
Stu. Dispatch him—Nay, start not—Desperate occasions call for desperate deeds. We live but by his death.
Bates. You cannot mean it?
Stu. I do, by heaven.
Bates. Good night then.
[Going.
Stu. Stay. I must be heard, then answered. Perhaps the motion was too sudden; and human nature starts at murder, though strong necessity compels it. I have thought long of this; and my first feelings were like yours; a foolish conscience awed me, which soon I conquered. The man that would undo me, nature cries out, undo. Brutes know their foes by instinct; and where superior force is given, they use it for destruction. Shall man do less? Lewson pursues us to our ruin; and shall we, with the means to crush him, fly from our hunter, or turn and tear him? 'Tis folly even to hesitate.