Ye savage winds—fierce angry gusts to howl one’s requiem. All looks like silence and forgetfulness! (_his eye catches sight of the skeletons_) Hah! Magellan’s Traitors! There swing your mouldering bones. Fit place for execution. Ye paid your debt. Would the penalty had blotted treason from the world! Now, death, I welcome thee! (_He takes a bottle from his bosom_—_holds it up_—_drinks the contents and throws the bottle away_. _The Chaplain rushes forward to arrest his hand_.) Fletcher, I was prepared for this. Who plots should count the cost. So perish treason! The tyrant’s tool—the curse of liberty—that foils the patriot in his hour of might!—And. This poison’s quick!—Fletcher, thou art my friend! (_He looks at him imploringly_.) You’ll see me decently interred and let my crime be buried with my bones. England thou art avenged. Be free and happy! (_He begins to stagger_—FLETCHER _supports him_.) Friend—the end is near.—Oh! I have much to say; and speech deserts me! (_He totters_.) I—I—(_he sinks down holding_ FLETCHER—_and making an effort to speak dies_—.) _Scene changes_. SCENE II.—THE QUEEN’S PRIVATE CHAMBER. _The_ QUEEN _walking about in deep thought_, _with anxious uneasy gestures_, _and hesitating step_, MRS. ASHLEY, _her waiting woman watching her intently_. _The_ QUEEN _stops in front of a marble table_, _backed by a large steel mirror in which is reflected_ LEICESTER’S _symbolic present_, _scarcely less vividly represented in the polished surface on which it reposes_. QUEEN. Marvellous production! What art thou? How camest thou forth, thus full of fearful meaning, and whence this atmosphere of thought, surrounding thee, arresting attention for thyself, bearing the rapt soul beyond the present, with prophecy sublime and breathing power to tell without a tongue, of coming greatness! Beneath the frenzied eye thou dost assume proportions grand, looming its giant abstract, through dim futurity. No creature of Leicester’s paltry brain art thou. No workman’s unreflecting labour, no design of common art assembled those ideas, above the mortal mind. Conception vast! Some angels prompting through an artist’s skill, fathomless to me. I’ll try the common mind! (_She turns to her waiting woman_). Ashley, you know how high I hold your tact and judgment, in the subtle, tortuous ways of life, your clear opinion of men and things. How many changes you have seen! a rare experience yours, through the late bloody reigns. Mine has been sad, but you have lived longer. MRS. ASHLEY. Yes, my dear mistress and still of most concern to me, was what concerned your Royal Majesty. They knew well how truly I loved you, when, on your return to Ashridge after your release from Woodstock, you sent for me; and they committed me to the Fleet.