Abd. Julian, I feel less anger than regret.
No violence of speech, no obloquy,
No accusation shall escape my lips:
Need there is none, nor reason, to avoid
My questions: if thou value truth, reply.
Hath not Roderigo left the town and camp?
Hath not thy daughter?
Egi. Past the little brook
Toward the Betis—from a tower I saw
The fugitives, far on their way; they went
Over one bridge, each with armed men—not half
A league of road between them—and had joined
But that the olive-groves along the path
Concealed them from each other—not from me:
Beneath me the whole level I surveyed,
And, when my eyes no longer could discern
Which track they took, I knew it from the storks
Rising in clouds above the reedy plain.
Muza. Deny it, if thou canst.
Jul. I ordered it.
Abd. None could besides: lo! things in such a mass
Falling together on observant minds,
Create suspicion and establish proof:
Wanted there fresh—why not employ our arms?
Why go alone?
Muza. To parley, to conspire,
To reunite the Spaniards, which we saw,
To give up treaties, close up enmities,
And ratify the deed with Moorish blood.
Jul. Gladly would Spain procure your safe return,
Gladly would pay large treasures, for the aid
You brought against oppression—
Muza. Pay she shall—
The treasures of her soil, her ports, her youth:
If she resist, if she tumultuously
Call forth her brigands and we lose a man,
Dreadful shall be our justice; war shall rage
Through every city, hamlet, house, and field,
And, universal o’er the gasping land,
Depopulation.
Jul. They shall rue the day
Who dare these things.
Muza. Let order then prevail.
In vain thou sendest far away thy child,
Thy counsellor the metropolitan,
And Sisabert—prudence is mine no less.
Divide with us our conquests, but the king
Must be delivered up.