Be ready.… MICHAL [_To them._] What is this! [DAVID, _haggard, with drawn sword and a piece of_ SAUL’S _cloak in his hand, re-enters from the cave_. _He sees_ MICHAL, _pauses, and gazes upon her, as she on him, with rising emotion_.] MICHAL [_Inarticulate. Then._] Ah, you have slain-- Have slain him! Wretch! thou wretch! And sleeping as he was! DAVID Then it was you? In lying rags? MICHAL Have struck him in his sleep! And merciless!--And now will kill me, too? DAVID In faithless rags? You are the leper? Who [_Growing frenzied._] Drove me a prey unto this wilderness! Upon the blot of it and death and sear! The silence, burning, and relentless swoon! You are the leper, who have broken troth And shut the cry of justice from your breast! Who’ve stifled me with desolation’s woe, Who’ve followed still and still have me betrayed! MICHAL Betrayed? No, loose me! DAVID Slain thy father? slain? [_Flinging the piece of_ SAUL’S _cloak at her feet_.] See how I might--see, see you, yonder he lies A king who quits the kingdom, though a cloud Of Philistines is foaming toward Gilboa; Jeoparded leaves it, undefended, for Pursuit of me and pitiless harrying! A king who murders priests.… MICHAL Priests? DAVID Stifles God With penitence that he has shaped the world! Have slain? have slain him! I have slain him! Ah! Ah, that I had thy falseness and could slay him! MICHAL David!… DAVID Nevermore near me! never with That quivering and tenderness of lure. Those eyes that hold infinity of fate, That breathing cassia-sweet, but sorcery! MICHAL Oh.… DAVID Never thy presence pouring beauty, swift, And seething in the brain as frantic wine! I’ll be no more enspelled of thee--never! I will not hear thee and be wound by words Into thy wile as wide as Ashtoreth’s, Back into hope, eternity of pain! [_In agony he goes_, ABIATHAR _and_ ABISHAI _after_. MICHAL _stands gazing fearlessly before her, as_ SAUL, _awakened, slowly comes from the mouth of the cave down toward her_.] [_CURTAIN._] ACT IV. _SCENE: The House of MIRIAM, the “Witch of Endor,” by Mount Gilboa--where Saul is encamped against the Philistines. It is of one story, built rectangularly about an inner court, which is dimly lighted._