SALADIN.
Come, come, I promise whatsoe’er thy prayer.
RECHA.
Nor more nor less than leave my father to me,
And me to him. As yet I cannot tell
What other wants to be my father. Who
Can want it, care I not to inquire. Does blood
Alone then make the father? blood alone?
SALADIN (raising her).
Who was so cruel in thy breast to shed
This wild suspicion? Is it proved, made clear?
RECHA.
It must, for Daya had it from my nurse,
Whose dying lips intrusted it to her.
SALADIN.
Dying, perhaps delirious; if ’twere true,
Blood only does not make by much the father,
Scarcely the father of a brute, scarce gives
The first right to endeavour at deserving
The name of father. If there be two fathers
At strife for thee, quit both, and take a third,
And take me for thy father.