[A CRY WITHIN AND TUMULT.]
VOICES:
Murder! Murder! Murder!
[ENTER BERNARDO AND SAVELLA.]
SAVELLA [TO HIS FOLLOWERS]:
Go search the castle round; sound the alarm;
Look to the gates, that none escape!
BEATRICE:
What now?
BERNARDO:
I know not what to say…my father’s dead. _55
BEATRICE:
How; dead! he only sleeps; you mistake, brother.
His sleep is very calm, very like death;
’Tis wonderful how well a tyrant sleeps.
He is not dead?
BERNARDO:
Dead; murdered.
LUCRETIA [WITH EXTREME AGITATION]:
Oh no, no!
He is not murdered though he may be dead; _60
I have alone the keys of those apartments.
SAVELLA:
Ha! Is it so?