Gulnare announces his doom to him, but he is calm. He cannot stoop even to pray. He has deserted his Maker, and it would be baseness now to prostrate himself before Him.
“I have no thought to mock his throne with prayer
Wrung from the coward crouching of despair;
It is enough—I breathe—and I can bear.”
He has no martyr-hope with which to console himself; his endurance is of the finest order—simple, sheer resolution, a resolve that with no reward, he will never disgrace himself. He knows what it is
“To count the hours that struggle to thine end,
With not a friend to animate, and tell
To other ears that death became thee well,”
but he does not break down.
Gulnare tries to persuade him that the only way by which he can save himself from tortures and impalement is by the assassination of Seyd, but he refuses to accept the terms—
“Who spares a woman’s seeks not slumber’s life”—
and dismisses her. When she has done the deed and he sees the single spot of blood upon her, he, the Corsair, is unmanned as he had never been in battle, prison, or by consciousness of guilt.
“But ne’er from strife—captivity—remorse—
From all his feelings in their inmost force—
So thrill’d—so shudder’d every creeping vein,
As now they froze before that purple stain.
That spot of blood, that light but guilty streak,
Had banish’d all the beauty from her cheek!”
The Corsair’s misanthropy had not destroyed him. Small creatures alone are wholly converted into spite and scepticism by disappointment and repulse. Those who are larger avenge themselves by devotion. Conrad’s love for Medora was intensified and exalted by his hatred of the world.