_Osorio (in a slow voice with a reasoning laugh)._ Love--love--and then we hate--and what? and wherefore? Hatred and love. Strange things! both strange alike! What if one reptile sting another reptile, Where is the crime? The goodly face of Nature Hath one trail less of slimy filth upon it. 215 Are we not all predestined rottenness And cold dishonor? Grant it that this hand Had given a morsel to the hungry worms Somewhat too early. Where's the guilt of this? That this must needs bring on the idiotcy 220 Of moist-eyed penitence--'tis like a dream! _Velez._ Wild talk, my child! but thy excess of feeling [_Turns off from OSORIO._ Sometimes, I fear, it will unhinge his brain! _Osorio._ I kill a man and lay him in the sun, And in a month there swarm from his dead body 225 A thousand--nay, ten thousand sentient beings In place of that one man whom I had kill'd. Now who shall tell me, that each one and all, Of these ten thousand lives, is not as happy As that one life, which being shov'd aside 230 Made room for these ten thousand?[559:1] _Velez._ Wild as madness! _Osorio._ Come, father! you have taught me to be merry, And merrily we'll pore upon this picture. _Velez (holding the picture before Osorio)._ That Moor, who points his sword at Albert's breast---- _Osorio (abruptly)._ A tender-hearted, scrupulous, grateful villain, 235 Whom I will strangle! _Velez._ And these other two---- _Osorio._ Dead--dead already!--what care I for the dead? _Velez._ The heat of brain and your too strong affection For Albert, fighting with your other passion, Unsettle you, and give reality 240 To these your own contrivings. _Osorio._ Is it so? You see through all things with _your_ penetration. Now I am calm. How fares it with Maria? My heart doth ache to see her. _Velez._ Nay--defer it! Defer it, dear Osorio! I will go. [_Exit VELEZ._ 245 _Osorio._ A rim of the sun lies yet upon the sea-- And now 'tis gone! all may be done this night! _Enter a_ Servant. _Osorio._ There is a man, once a Moresco chieftain, One Ferdinand. _Servant._ He lives in the Alpuxarras, Beneath a slate rock. _Osorio._ Slate rock? _Servant._ Yes, my lord! 250 If you had seen it, you must have remember'd The flight of steps his children had worn up it With often clambering. _Osorio._ Well, it may be so. _Servant._ Why, now I think on't, at this time of the year 'Tis hid by vines.