SILAS. "Here are ARNOLD'S skeleton keys. I will steal them, and rob the man in the opposite house." Robs him and is pursued by the police.
Scene 2d. MRS. ARMITAGE'S garret. Enter that interesting and hungry lady.
MRS. ARMITAGE. "My child is dead; I will die too." (Dies.)
Enter ARNOLD. "Here is a doll and other delicacies. Come to life again and eat them." They come to life and retire to the hall for feasting and revelry. Enter SILAS.
SILAS. "The police are after me. There is not a moment to lose. I will therefore stop for an hour and arrange things so as to ensure ARNOLD'S arrest, and will then escape through the scuttle." (He arranges things and then scuttles away. Enter police, after ten minutes of preliminary howling on the staircase, and discovering ARNOLD'S skeleton keys, arrest him.) Curtain.
Everybody in the audience. "I don't begin to see into the plot yet, but we shall in time."
ACT II. Scene, the Quarries, with convicts at work. They make elaborate motions with picks at white rocks, and thus dig out considerable black slate. SILAS has become a Warden, no one knows how. The convicts sing and enjoy themselves, with the exception of ARNOLD, who evidently finds prison life too gay and frivolous. Mrs. ARMITAGE, who has become a fashionable lady—no one knows how-enters with a procession of nice girls to watch the joyous prisoners. A COMIC CONVICT, with a fine sense of the fun of the thing, proposes a mutiny. Convicts all mutiny, and ARNOLD and his comic friend escape. They take refuge in a busy highway, and the COMIC CONVICT sings comic songs in order to prevent the police from approaching them. The police—having some little musical taste, wisely keep at a distance. The two convicts rob a drunken soldier of his uniform, and, disguised as officers, go to India. The drunken soldier is arrested as an escaped convict and dragged to prison. The entire population of Great Britain embark for India in a neat pasteboard steamer. Exasperating drums beat until the audience becomes too much confused to notice the astounding evolutions of the military. After a few hours of this sort of thing some intelligent carpenter mutinies and drops the curtain.
Everybody in the audience. "I don't begin to see into this plot yet, but we shall in time."
ACT III.—Scene, a garden in India. The heroine who has been locked up during the previous acts, by her aunt, escapes from a window by means of a ladder. She displays much agility, but not a glimpse of ankle. Consequent disappointment in the audience. Enter ARNOLD—now a captain—who makes love to her. Enter COLONEL WILLOUGHBY, and at her earnest request promises not to marry her. The rebellious Sepoys—who are quite white—attack the GARIBALDI Guard of British Italians, who are quite dark. Sudden arrival of SILAS, much out of breath through having run all the way from England. WILLOUGHBY is killed, and SILAS, who looks precisely like him, (as indeed he ought to, inasmuch as CHARLES WALCOT plays both characters,) puts on his clothes—trousers excepted—and takes command of the troops. A pitched battle with fire-crackers—which are pitched promiscuously on the stage—takes place, with a pleasing slaughter of the white-faced Sepoys. The drummers become obviously frantic, and beat their drums as though they were beating the managers out of a year's salary in advance. The single men of the audience, deafened by the noise, and choked by the smoke, rush out of the theatre for air. They return to find the curtain down, and the act ended.
Everybody in the audience. "I don't begin to see into the plot yet, but we shall in time."