_Cort_. Is this your answer, sir? _Mont_.--This, as a prince, Bound to my people's and my crown's defence, I must return; but, as a man, by you Redeemed from death, all gratitude is due. _Cort_. It was an act my honour bound me to: But what I did, were I again to do, I could not do it on my honour's score, For love would now oblige me to do more. Is no way left that we may yet agree? Must I have war, yet have no enemy? _Vasq_. He has refused all terms of peace to take. _Mont_. Since we must fight, hear, heavens, what prayers I make! First, to preserve this ancient state and me, But if your doom the fall of both decree, Grant only he, who has such honour shewn, When I am dust, may fill my empty throne! _Cort_. To make me happier than that wish can do, Lies not in all your Gods to grant, but you; Let this fair princess but one minute stay, A look from her will your obligements pay. [_Exeunt_ MONTEZUMA, ODMAR, GUYOMAR, ORBELLAN, ALMERIA, and ALIBECH. _Mont_. to _Cyd_. Your duty in your quick return be shewn.-- Stay you, and wait my daughter to the town. [_To his guards_. [CYDARIA _is going, but turns and looks back upon_ CORTEZ, _who is looking on her all this while_. _Cyd_. My father's gone, and yet I cannot go; Sure I have something lost or left behind! [_Aside_. _Cort_. Like travellers who wander in the snow, I on her beauty gaze 'till I am blind. [_Aside_. _Cyd_. Thick breath, quick pulse, and heaving of my heart, All signs of some unwonted change appear: I find myself unwilling to depart, And yet I know not why I would be here. Stranger, you raise such torments in my breast, That when I go, (if I must go again) I'll tell my father you have robbed my rest, And to him of your injuries complain. _Cort_. Unknown, I swear, those wrongs were which I wrought, But my complaints will much more just appear, Who from another world my freedom brought, And to your conquering eyes have lost it here. _Cyd_. Where is that other world, from whence you came? _Cort_. Beyond the ocean, far from hence it lies. _Cyd_. Your other world, I fear, is then the same, That souls must go to when the body dies. But what's the cause that keeps you here with me, That I may know what keeps me here with you? _Cort_. Mine is a love which must perpetual be, If you can be so just as I am true. _Enter_ ORBELLAN. _Orb_. Your father wonders much at your delay. _Cyd_. So great a wonder for so small a stay! _Orb_. He has commanded you with me to go. _Cyd_. Has he not sent to bring the stranger too? _Orb_. If he to-morrow dares in fight appear, His high-placed love perhaps may cost him dear. _Cort_. Dares!--that word was never spoke to Spaniard yet, But forfeited his life, who gave him it; Haste quickly with thy pledge of safety hence, Thy guilt's protected by her innocence. _Cyd_. Sure in some fatal hour my love was born, So soon o'ercast with absence in the morn!