_Juan._ Heaven be thanked indeed, if you are yet clear from it?—but while you continue in your present course, what security can you have, that you will always remain so. And should a consequence so fatal ensue, think only on the boundless misery that it must bring both on Cora and yourself. That she must die would be little; the horrible idea is, the manner of her death. Shut up alive in a subterraneous vault, the opening of which will be closed upon her for ever, with only a single loaf of bread and a small lamp, she must sit gasping for air, and soon endure the severest torments of hunger.—Oh the very thought makes me shudder!—I have encountered death undauntedly under a variety of forms; but I could not bear to meet him under this. _Alonzo._ (_Falling on his neck._) I will never see Cora again! _Juan._ Worthily resolved!—let us then instantly depart!—(_Endeavours to draw him away._) _Alonzo._ Only permit me to take leave of her! _Juan._ Write her a letter, which we will throw over the wall—You hesitate!—Oh you are undecided!—Ha! already I see the hapless Cora enclosed in her horrible dungeon, crushed by the two-fold agony of bodily and mental torments, lying on the ground and gnawing her own flesh—uttering the most dreadful execrations against her God, and amid the wildest ravings of phrenzy breathing out that soul, the purity of which was poisoned by thee. Then when she shall stand before him who hereafter will judge alike the Peruvian and the Spaniard, and shall accuse thee as the origin of all her woes, the occasion of her becoming the murderer of her child—— _Alonzo._ (_Eagerly pulling Juan forwards._) Come, come!—let us fly! _Juan._ With the utmost transport! (_As they are going, a clapping of hands is heard behind the wall._) _Alonzo._ (_Turning suddenly round_) That is her signal! my Cora! my Cora!—(_He breaks away from Velasquez, and climbs hastily over the breach in the wall._) SCENE V.—_DON JUAN, and DIEGO. Juan looks after Alonzo with Astonishment and Indignation._ _Diego._ (_After a pause._) Now do I defy any one to assert again, that sound is an empty thing—a nothing. The most reverend Don Juan Velasquez has been for a long time holding such a discourse here as is not delivered every day, even from the pulpit of Salamanca, but the moment that three or four claps are given by a pair of heathenish hands, the wretch for whose benefit this fine oration was intended, loses every beneficial impression, gives them all to the winds, and runs headlong after his own wild inventions.