Fontanares I have, then, escaped with my life. Let me ask all of you here present, if you look upon Don Ramon as the real inventor of the vessel which has been propelled by steam before the eyes of two hundred thousand Spaniards?
All
We do.
(Quinola makes his appearance.)
Fontanares Very good. Don Ramon has accomplished this prodigy. Don Ramon can begin his work again. (A loud explosion is heard.) The prodigy is no longer in existence. The employment of such a force is not without danger, and the danger which Don Ramon had not foreseen, has manifested itself, at the very moment while Don Ramon was receiving your congratulations! (Cries in the distance; everybody rushes to the balcony and gazes seaward.) I am avenged!
Don Fregose
What will the king say?
The Grand Inquisitor France is all ablaze, the low countries in revolt, Calvin is stirring up all Europe; the king has too much business on his hands to worry himself about the loss of a ship. This new invention and the Reformation would have been too much at one time for the world! Now for some years the rapacity of maritime peoples has been checked.
(Exeunt omnes.)
SCENE SIXTH
Quinola, Fontanares and Faustine.
Faustine
Alfonso, I have done you much wrong.