Fam. Spare them, Megario. I'll go in.
[Enters hut, closing door]
Meg. [Trembling] That voice!
Who is this woman? Speak! Who knows? I've heard....
Bah! I'm a fool!... Take up that lantern there,
Gonzalo. Break it on the fibre. Move!
[He stands with his weapon drawn. The door of the hut in thrown open and Famette appears. She wears a rich robe, gleaming white, with blue and gold cabalistic broidery. In her hand is a sceptre, on her head a crown with a single star. The men, with cries of "Osa! Osa!" fall upon their knees, foreheads to ground, then leap up, changed, and glaring. They seem ready to spring upon Megario]
Fam. Shoot now, Megario! [Silence]
You dare not do it!
Kill me,—kill one of them,—shoot till your weapon
Pants its last murder, and a hundred hands
Will tear you limb from limb and bone from bone,
Till every separate shred of you be cast
To its own devil! Shoot, Megario!
[His hand falls. Famette steps into the yard]
Where are the masters who can help you now?
The mighty ones who know how power is kept?
Look on these men. Their blood sings as it sang
Through centuries gone,—with courage that was theirs
Ere ships came up like night on this doomed coast
Unloading hell!
Meg. Who are you, woman? Who?
Fam. The spirit of these people, absent long,
But come at last to be their hearts' old fire.
Four hundred years you've trampled on their bodies,
But see—look in their eyes—you have not slain
Their God.
Meg. Your name! Who are you?
Fam. Riven hills
May hide the shrine of long unsceptred kings,
And keep their royal secret year by year.
Voices. Hail, Osa! Osa, queen!
Meg. What do you want?