No More Learning

HERBERT (feebly)
A stranger has done this,
And in the arms of a stranger I must die.

ELDRED Nay, think not so: come, let me raise you up:
[Raises him. ]
This is a dismal place--well--that is well--
I was too fearful--take me for your guide
And your support--my hut is not far off.
[Draws him gently off the stage. ]



SCENE--A room in the Hostel--MARMADUKE and OSWALD


MARMADUKE But for Idonea! --I have cause to think
That she is innocent.


OSWALD Leave that thought awhile,
As one of those beliefs which in their hearts
Lovers lock up as pearls, though oft no better
Than feathers clinging to their points of passion.
This day's event has laid on me the duty
Of opening out my story; you must hear it,
And without further preface. --In my youth,
Except for that abatement which is paid
By envy as a tribute to desert,
I was the pleasure of all hearts, the darling
Of every tongue--as you are now. You've heard
That I embarked for Syria. On our voyage
Was hatched among the crew a foul Conspiracy
Against my honour, in the which our Captain
Was, I believed, prime Agent. The wind fell;
We lay becalmed week after week, until
The water of the vessel was exhausted;
I felt a double fever in my veins,
Yet rage suppressed itself;--to a deep stillness
Did my pride tame my pride;--for many days,
On a dead sea under a burning sky,
I brooded o'er my injuries, deserted
By man and nature;--if a breeze had blown,
It might have found its way into my heart,
And I had been--no matter--do you mark me?


MARMADUKE Quick--to the point--if any untold crime
Doth haunt your memory.


OSWALD Patience, hear me further! --
One day in silence did we drift at noon
By a bare rock, narrow, and white, and bare;
No food was there, no drink, no grass, no shade,
No tree, nor jutting eminence, nor form
Inanimate large as the body of man,
Nor any living thing whose lot of life
Might stretch beyond the measure of one moon.
To dig for water on the spot, the Captain
Landed with a small troop, myself being one:
There I reproached him with his treachery.
Imperious at all times, his temper rose;
He struck me; and that instant had I killed him,
And put an end to his insolence, but my Comrades
Rushed in between us: then did I insist
(All hated him, and I was stung to madness)
That we should leave him there, alive! --we did so.


MARMADUKE And he was famished?


OSWALD Naked was the spot;
Methinks I see it now--how in the sun
Its stony surface glittered like a shield;
And in that miserable place we left him,
Alone but for a swarm of minute creatures
Not one of which could help him while alive,
Or mourn him dead.


MARMADUKE A man by men cast off,
Left without burial! nay, not dead nor dying,
But standing, walking, stretching forth his arms,
In all things like ourselves, but in the agony
With which he called for mercy; and--even so--
He was forsaken?


OSWALD There is a power in sounds:
The cries he uttered might have stopped the boat
That bore us through the water--


MARMADUKE You returned
Upon that dismal hearing--did you not?


OSWALD Some scoffed at him with hellish mockery,
And laughed so loud it seemed that the smooth sea
Did from some distant region echo us.


MARMADUKE We all are of one blood, our veins are filled
At the same poisonous fountain!


OSWALD 'Twas an island
Only by sufferance of the winds and waves,
Which with their foam could cover it at will.
I know not how he perished; but the calm,
The same dead calm, continued many days.


MARMADUKE
But his own crime had brought on him this doom,
His wickedness prepared it; these expedients
Are terrible, yet ours is not the fault.


OSWALD The man was famished, and was innocent!


MARMADUKE Impossible!


OSWALD The man had never wronged me.