Mufti. And what's become of my other slave? Thou hast sold him too, I have a villainous suspicion.
Must. I know you have, my lord; but while I was managing this young robustious fellow, that old spark, who was nothing but skin and bone, and by consequence very nimble, slipt through my fingers like an eel, for there was no hold-fast of him, and ran away to buy himself a new master.
Muft. [To Ant.] Follow me home, sirrah:—[To Must.] I shall remember you some other time.
[Exit Mufti with Ant.
Must. I never doubted your lordship's memory for an ill turn: And I shall remember him too in the next rising of the mobile for this act of resumption; and more especially for the ghostly 328 counsel he gave me before the emperor, to have hanged myself in silence to have saved his reverence. The best on't is, I am beforehand with him for selling one of his slaves twice over; and if he had not come just in the nick, I might have pocketed up the other; for what should a poor man do that gets his living by hard labour, but pray for bad times when he may get it easily? O for some incomparable tumult! Then should I naturally wish that the beaten party might prevail; because we have plundered the other side already, and there is nothing more to get of them.
Both rich and poor for their own interest pray,
'Tis ours to make our fortune while we may;
For kingdoms are not conquered every day.[Exit.
ACT II.
SCENE I.—Supposed to be a Terrace Walk, on the side of the Castle of Alcazar.
Enter Emperor and Benducar.
Emp. And thinkst thou not, it was discovered?
Bend. No:
The thoughts of kings are like religious groves,
The walks of muffled gods: Sacred retreat,
Where none, but whom they please to admit, approach.
Emp. Did not my conscious eye flash out a flame,
To lighten those brown horrors, and disclose
The secret path I trod?
Bend. I could not find it, till you lent a clue
To that close labyrinth; how then should they?