You nasty thing! Is this your poetry— Your high soul-scheming and philosophy? I hate and loathe you! (_To Indiana_).—Rival of my shoe, Go, get thee gone, and hide thee from the day That loathes thine ebon skin! Firmilian— You’ll hear of this! My brother serves the king. LILIAN. My uncle is the chief Inquisitor, And he shall know of this ere curfew tolls! What! Shall I share a husband with a coal? MARIANA. Right, girl! I love thee even for that word— The Inquisition makes most rapid work, And, in its books, that caitiff’s name is down! FIRMILIAN. Listen one moment! When I was a babe, And in my cradle puling for my nurse, There fell a gleam of glory on the floor, And in it, darkly standing, was a form— MARIANA. A negress, probably! Farewell awhile— When next we meet—the faggot and the pile! Come, Lilian! [_Exeunt._ INDIANA. I shake from head to foot with sore affright— What will become of me? FIRMILIAN. Who cares? Good night! [_Scene closes._ Bravo, Percy! The first part of that scene is managed with a dexterity which old Dekker might have applauded, and the conclusion shows a perfect knowledge of womanly character and feeling. Firmilian is now cast beyond the pale of society, and in imminent danger, if apprehended, of taking a conspicuous part in an _auto-da-fé_. An author of inferior genius would probably have consigned him to the custody of the Familiars, in which case we should have had a dungeon and rack scene, if not absolute incremation as the catastrophe. But Jones knew better. He felt that such a cruel fate might, by the effect of contrast, revive some kind of sympathy in the mind of the reader for Firmilian, and he has accordingly adopted the wiser plan of depicting him as the victim of his own haunted imagination. The closing scene is so eminently graphic, and so perfectly original, that we give it entire. A BARREN MOOR. _Night—Mist and fog._ _Enter_ FIRMILIAN. They’re hot upon my traces! Through the mist I heard their call and answer—and but now, As I was crouching ’neath a hawthorn bush, A dark Familiar swiftly glided by, His keen eyes glittering with the lust of death.