Hud. This moral chant comes late from you, my lord,
Who've fingered heavily in many a pie
Spiced in the devil's kitchen.
Cor. But to sell
My people! Pay you this devouring price
For stock that hardy yields the groaning third
Of interest on your bonds! What shall we do
To pay it? Rob our treasury, and ask
Our worn-out slaves to fill it up again?
Not ask, but goad and lash,—for you must have
Your own—you honest mortgagees of babes
Unborn——
Hud. Is all the scarlet on our hands?
What of that mountain province, sold entire
To foreign pockets, and the dwellers there
Torn up like shrieking roots and cast abroad
To fasten where they could?
Cor. And where was that
But in your hell-mouthed mines? You wanted slaves
And got them.
Her. I shall die, Señora!
Señ. Listen!
Hud. The tyrant Cordiaz grown pitiful?
Then stones are butter, alabaster is
Uncrumpled down. You should have wept before
The Pueblo strike, then fewer corpses had
Gone out to sea.
Cor. Don't name that thing to me!
Don't speak of it! I will not bear that curse!
Hud. Mine aged convert, lies it in your will,
Or juster Heaven's?
Cor. 'Twas your property
My troops defended—and Rubirez lied.
Swore that the men foamed mad as tuskèd beasts,
And must be trashed to place,—men who had asked
No more than bread when you shut up your doors——