No More Learning

_)
Pursue! Why stand'st thou here, and leavest the ranks
Of fellow-soldiers conquering without thee?

_Pan. _ The King's command was not to quit thee.

_Myr. _ _Me! _
Think not of me--a single soldier's arm
Must not be wanting now. I ask no guard,
I need no guard: what, with a world at stake,
Keep watch upon a woman? Hence, I say, 290
Or thou art shamed! Nay, then, _I_ will go forth,
A feeble female, 'midst their desperate strife,
And bid thee guard me _there_--where thou shouldst shield
Thy sovereign. [_Exit_ MYRRHA.

_Pan. _ Yet stay, damsel! --She's gone.
If aught of ill betide her, better I
Had lost my life.
Sardanapalus holds her
Far dearer than his kingdom, yet he fights
For that too; and can I do less than he,
Who never flashed a scimitar till now?
Myrrha, return, and I obey you, though 300
In disobedience to the monarch. [_Exit_ PANIA.

_Enter_ ALTADA _and_ SFERO _by an opposite door_.

_Alt. _ Myrrha!
What, gone? yet she was here when the fight raged,
And Pania also. Can aught have befallen them?

_Sfe. _ I saw both safe, when late the rebels fled;
They probably are but retired to make
Their way back to the harem.

_Alt. _ If the King
Prove victor, as it seems even now he must,
And miss his own Ionian, we are doomed
To worse than captive rebels.

_Sfe. _ Let us trace them:
She cannot be fled far; and, found, she makes 310
A richer prize to our soft sovereign
Than his recovered kingdom.

_Alt.