No More Learning

SALTABADIL: Get on with the sack.

MAGUELONNE: You only want the money. Take and kill
The little hunchback when he comes with it.

BLANCHE: My father!

SALTABADIL (_angrily_): What! Am I a common thief?
Kill my own client? I will have you know,
My sister, that I am an honest man.
I do the work I'm paid for.

[_Drawing his dagger, he goes towards the stairs. _

MAGUELONNE (_barring the way_): Stop, I say!
Or I will go and rouse him.

BLANCHE: Good, brave girl!

SALTABADIL: Well, let us make a bargain, Maguelonne.
If anyone comes knocking at our inn
By midnight, he shall go into the sack.
My client only wants to fling some corpse
Into the river, and on this wild night
He will not see what he is throwing in.

MAGUELONNE: It is just on the hour. No one will come.
Cannot you ram this faggot in the sack?

SALTABADIL: Who would take that for a limp body? No!
Either a traveller or the man upstairs.
That is all! Will you take the chance?

MAGUELONNE (_weeping_): I must.

BLANCHE: Oh, God, I cannot! No! I am too young.
He does not love me.

[_A church-bell begins to chime the hour. _

SALTABADIL: Midnight!