_Enter Emperor,_ SEBASTIAN, _and_ ALMEYDA. Ask him, I beg thee,--to be justified,-- If he employed me not to ford thy soul, And try the footing, whether false or firm. _Dor._ Death to my eyes, I see Sebastian with him! Must he be served?--Avoid him: If we meet, It must be like the crush of heaven and earth, To involve us both in ruin. [_Exit._ _Bend._ 'Twas a bare saving game I made with Dorax; But better so than lost. He cannot hurt me; That I precautioned: I must ruin him.-- But now this love; ay, there's the gathering storm! The tyrant must not wed Almeyda: No! That ruins all the fabric I am raising. Yet, seeming to approve, it gave me time; And gaining time gains all. [_Aside._ [BENDUCAR _goes and waits behind the Emperor. The Emperor,_ SEBASTIAN, _and_ ALMEYDA, _advance to the front of the stage: Guards and Attendants._ _Emp._ to _Seb._ I bade them serve you; and, if they obey not, I keep my lions keen within their dens, To stop their maws with disobedient slaves. _Seb._ If I had conquered, They could not have with more observance waited: Their eyes, hands, feet, Are all so quick, they seem to have but one motion, To catch my flying words. Only the alcayde Shuns me; and, with a grim civility, Bows, and declines my walks. _Emp._ A renegade: I know not more of him, but that he's brave, And hates your Christian sect. If you can frame A farther wish, give wing to your desires, And name the thing you want. _Seb._ My liberty; For were even paradise itself my prison, Still I should long to leap the crystal walls. _Emp._ Sure our two souls have somewhere been acquainted In former beings; or, struck out together, One spark to Afric flew, and one to Portugal. Expect a quick deliverance: Here's a third, [_Turning to_ ALMEYDA. Of kindred sold to both: pity our stars Have made us foes! I should not wish her death. _Alm._ I ask no pity; if I thought my soul Of kin to thine, soon would I rend my heart-strings, And tear out that alliance; but thou, viper, Hast cancelled kindred, made a rent in nature, And through her holy bowels gnawed thy way, Through thy own blood, to empire. _Emp._ This again! And yet she lives, and only lives to upbraid me! _Seb._ What honour is there in a woman's death! Wronged, as she says, but helpless to revenge; Strong in her passion, impotent of reason, Too weak to hurt, too fair to be destroyed. Mark her majestic fabric; she's a temple Sacred by birth, and built by hands divine; Her souls the deity that lodges there; Nor is the pile unworthy of the god. _Emp._ She's all that thou canst say, or I can think; But the perverseness of her clamourous tongue Strikes pity deaf.