_Cal_. Why not now? _I. Ber_. Be patient but till midnight. Get your musters, And bid our friends prepare their companies: Set all in readiness to strike the blow, Perhaps in a few hours: we have long waited For a fit time--that hour is on the dial, It may be, of to-morrow's sun: delay 40 Beyond may breed us double danger. See That all be punctual at our place of meeting, And armed, excepting those of the Sixteen,[411] Who will remain among the troops to wait The signal. _Cal_. These brave words have breathed new life Into my veins; I am sick of these protracted And hesitating councils: day on day Crawled on, and added but another link To our long fetters, and some fresher wrong Inflicted on our brethren or ourselves, 50 Helping to swell our tyrants' bloated strength. Let us but deal upon them, and I care not For the result, which must be Death or Freedom! I'm weary to the heart of finding neither. _I. Ber_. We will be free in Life or Death! the grave Is chainless. Have you all the musters ready? And are the sixteen companies completed To sixty? _Cal_. All save two, in which there are Twenty-five wanting to make up the number. _I. Ber_. No matter; we can do without. Whose are they? 60 _Cal_. Bertram's[412] and old Soranzo's, both of whom Appear less forward in the cause than we are. _I. Ber_. Your fiery nature makes you deem all those Who are not restless cold; but there exists Oft in concentred spirits not less daring Than in more loud avengers. Do not doubt them. _Cat_. I do not doubt the elder; but in Bertram There is a hesitating softness, fatal To enterprise like ours: I've seen that man Weep like an infant o'er the misery 70 Of others, heedless of his own, though greater; And in a recent quarrel I beheld him Turn sick at sight of blood, although a villain's. _I. Ber_. The truly brave are soft of heart and eyes, And feel for what their duty bids them do. I have known Bertram long; there doth not breathe A soul more full of honour. _Cal_. It may be so: I apprehend less treachery than weakness; Yet as he has no mistress, and no wife To work upon his milkiness of spirit, 80 He may go through the ordeal; it is well He is an orphan, friendless save in us: A woman or a child had made him less Than either in resolve.