CHARLES. Indeed, Schufterle? Then may those flames burn in thy bosom
to all eternity! Avaunt, monster! Never let me see thee again in my
troop! What! Do you murmur? Do you hesitate? Who dares hesitate when
I command? Away with him, I say! And there are others among you ripe
for my vengeance. I know thee, Spiegelberg. But I will step in among
you ere long, and hold a fearful muster-roll.
[Exeunt, trembling.]
CHARLES (alone, walking up and down in great agitation). Hear them not, thou avenger in heaven! How can I avert it? Art thou to blame, great God, if thy engines, pestilence, and famine, and floods, overwhelm the just with the unjust? Who can stay the flame, which is kindled to destroy the hornet's nest, from extending to the blessed harvest? Oh! fie on the slaughter of women, and children, and the sick! How this deed weighs me down! It has poisoned my fairest achievements! There he stands, poor fool, abashed and disgraced in the sight of heaven; the boy that presumed to wield Jove's thunder, and overthrew pigmies when he should have crushed Titans. Go, go! 'tis not for thee, puny son of clay, to wield the avenging sword of sovereign justice! Thou didst fail at thy first essay. Here, then, I renounce the audacious scheme. I go to hide myself in some deep cleft of the earth, where no daylight will be witness of my shame. (He is about to fly.)
Enter a ROBBER hurriedly.
ROBBER. Look out, captain! There is mischief in the wind! Whole detachments of Bohemian cavalry are scouring the forests. That infernal bailiff must have betrayed us.
Enter more ROBBERS.
2D ROBBER. Captain! captain! they have tracked us! Some thousands of them are forming a cordon round the middle forest.
Enter more ROBBERS again.
3D ROBBER. Woe, woe, woe! we are all taken, hanged drawn, and
quartered. Thousands of hussars, dragoons, and chasseurs are mustering
on the heights, and guard all the passes.
[Exit CHARLES VON MOOR.]
Enter SCHWEITZER, GRIMM, ROLLER, SCHWARZ, SCHUFTERLE,
SPIEGELBERG, RAZMAN, and the whole troop.
SCHWEITZER. Ha! Have we routed them out of their feather-beds at last? Come, be jolly, Roller! I have long wished to have a bout with those knights of the bread-basket. Where is the captain? Is the whole troop assembled? I hope we have powder enough?
RAZ. Powder, I believe you; but we are only eighty in all and therefore scarcely one to twenty.