SAV. Fetch A stoup o’ liquor for thyself and me. [Exit GAOLER.] Freedom! there’s nothing that thy votaries Grudge in the cause of thee. That decent man Is doom’d by me to lose his place again To-morrow morning when he wakes from out His hoggish slumber. Yet I care not. [Re-enter GAOLER with a leathern bottle and two glasses.] Ho! This is the stuff to warm our vitals, this The panacea for all mortal ills And sure elixir of eternal youth. Drink, bonniman! [GAOLER drains a glass and shows signs of instant intoxication. SAV. claps him on shoulder and replenishes glass. GAOLER drinks again, lies down on floor, and snores. SAV. snatches the bunch of keys, laughs long but silently, and creeps out on tip-toe, leaving door ajar. LUC. meanwhile has lain down on the straw in her cell, and fallen asleep. Noise of bolts being shot back, jangling of keys, grating of lock, and the door of LUC.’S cell flies open. SAV. takes two steps across the threshold, his arms outstretched and his upturned face transfigured with a great joy.] How sweet the open air Leaps to my nostrils! O the good brown earth That yields once more to my elastic tread And laves these feet with its remember’d dew! [Takes a few more steps, still looking upwards.] Free!--I am free! O naked arc of heaven, Enspangled with innumerable--no, Stars are not there. Yet neither are there clouds! The thing looks like a ceiling! [Gazes downward.] And this thing Looks like a floor. [Gazes around.] And that white bundle yonder Looks curiously like Lucrezia. [LUC. awakes at sound of her name, and sits up sane.] There must be some mistake. LUC. [Rises to her feet.] There is indeed! A pretty sort of prison I have come to, In which a self-respecting lady’s cell Is treated as a lounge! SAV. I had no notion You were in here. I thought I was out there. I will explain--but first I’ll make amends. Here are the keys by which your durance ends. The gate is somewhere in this corridor, And so good-bye to this interior! [Exeunt SAV. and LUC. Noise, a moment later, of a key grating in a lock, then of gate creaking on its hinges; triumphant laughs of fugitives; loud slamming of gate behind them. In SAV.’s cell the GAOLER starts in his sleep, turns his face to the wall, and snores more than ever deeply. Through open door comes a cloaked figure.] CLOAKED FIGURE Sleep on, Savonarola, and awake Not in this dungeon but in ruby Hell! [Stabs Gaoler, whose snores cease abruptly. Enter POPE JULIUS II, with Papal retinue carrying torches. MURDERER steps quickly back into shadow.] POPE [To body of GAOLER.] Savonarola, I am come to taunt Thee in thy misery and dire abjection. Rise, Sir, and hear me out.