_Maria._ Hush, hush! for shame. Where is your woman's heart? _Alhadra._ O gentle lady! You have no skill to guess my many wrongs, 200 Many and strange. Besides I am a Christian, And they do never pardon, 'tis their faith! _Maria._ Shame fall on those who so have shown it to thee! _Alhadra._ I know that man; 'tis well he knows not me! Five years ago, and he was the prime agent. 205 Five years ago the Holy Brethren seized me. _Maria._ What might your crime be? _Alhadra._ Solely my complexion. They cast me, then a young and nursing mother, Into a dungeon of their prison house. There was no bed, no fire, no ray of light, 210 No touch, no sound of comfort! The black air, It was a toil to breathe it! I have seen The gaoler's lamp, the moment that he enter'd, How the flame sunk at once down to the socket. O miserable, by that lamp to see 215 My infant quarrelling with the coarse hard bread Brought daily: for the little wretch was sickly-- My rage had dry'd away its natural food! In darkness I remain'd, counting the clocks[528:1] Which haply told me that the blessed sun 220 Was rising on my garden. When I dozed, My infant's moanings mingled with my dreams And wak'd me. If you were a mother, Lady, I should scarce dare to tell you, that its noises And peevish cries so fretted on my brain 225 That I have struck the innocent babe in anger! _Maria._ O God! it is too horrible to hear! _Alhadra._ What was it then to suffer? 'Tis most right That such as you should hear it. Know you not What Nature makes you mourn, she bids you heal? 230 Great evils ask great passions to redress them, And whirlwinds fitliest scatter pestilence. _Maria._ You were at length deliver'd? _Alhadra._ Yes, at length I saw the blessed arch of the whole heaven. 'Twas the first time my infant smiled! No more. 235 For if I dwell upon that moment, lady, A fit comes on, which makes me o'er again All I then was, my knees hang loose and drag, And my lip falls with such an ideot laugh That you would start and shudder! _Maria._ But your husband? 240 _Alhadra._ A month's imprisonment would kill him, lady! _Maria._ Alas, poor man! _Alhadra._ He hath a lion's courage, But is not stern enough for fortitude. Unfit for boisterous times, with gentle heart He worships Nature in the hill and valley, 245 Not knowing what he loves, but loves it all! [_Enter ALBERT disguised as a Moresco, and in Moorish garments._