_Abdelm._ No more; nothing my heart can bend: That queen, you scorned, you shall this night attend. Your life the king has pardoned for my sake; But on your pride I some revenge must take. See now the effects of what your arts designed! Thank your inconstant and ambitious mind. 'Tis just that she, who to no love is true, Should be forsaken, and contemned, like you. _Lyndar._ All arts of injured women I will try: First I will be revenged; and then I'll die. But like some falling tower, Whose seeming firmness does the sight beguile, So hold I up my nodding head a while, Till they come under; and reserve my fall, That with my ruins I may reach them all, _Abdelm._ Conduct her hence. [_Exit_ LYNDAR. _guarded._ _Enter a Soldier._ _Sold._ Almanzor is victorious without fight; The foes retreated when he came in sight. Under the walls, this night, his men are drawn, And mean to seek the Spaniard with the dawn. _Abdelm._ The sun's declined: Command the watch be set without delay, And in the fort let bold Benducar stay.-- [_Exit Sold._ I'll haste to court, where solitude I'll fly, And herd, like wounded deer, in company. But oh, how hard a passion to remove, When I must shun myself, to 'scape from love! [_Exit._ SCENE III.--_A Gallery in the Alhambra._ ZULEMA, HAMET. _Hamet._ I thought your passion for the queen was dead, Or that your love had, with your hopes, been fled. _Zul._ 'Twas like a fire within a furnace pent: I smothered it, and kept it long from vent; But, fed with looks, and blown with sighs so fast, It broke a passage through my lips at last. _Hamet._ Where found you confidence your suit to move? Our broken fortunes are not fit to love. Well; you declared your love:--What followed then? _Zul._ She looked as judges do on guilty men, When big with fate they triumph in their dooms, And smile before the deadly sentence comes. Silent I stood, as I were thunder-struck; Condemned and executed with a look. _Hamet._ You must, with haste, some remedy prepare: Now you are in, you must break through the snare. _Zul._ She said, she would my folly yet conceal; But vowed my next attempt she would reveal. _Hamet._ 'Tis dark; and in this lonely gallery, Remote from noise, and shunning every eye, One hour each evening she in private mourns, And prays, and to the circle then returns. _Zul._ These lighted tapers show the time is nigh. Perhaps my courtship will not be in vain: At least, few women will of force complain. _At the other end of the Gallery, enter_ ALMANZOR _and_ ESPERANZA. _Hamet._ Almanzor, and with him The favourite slave of the sultana queen. _Zul._ Ere they approach, let us retire unseen, And watch our time when they return again: Then force shall give, if favour does deny; And, that once done, we'll to the Spaniards fly. [_Exeunt_ ZUL. _and_ HAMET.