Aym. I will not hear—speak'st thou of chivalry?
Rai. Yes! I have been upon thy native hills.
There's a gray cliff juts proudly from their woods,
Crown'd with baronial towers—rememberest thou?
And there's a chapel by the moaning sea—
Thou know'st it well—tall pines wave over it,
Darkening the heavy banners, and the tombs.
Is not the cross upon thy fathers' tombs!—
Christian! what dost thou here?
Aym. (starting up indignantly.) Man! who art thou?
Thy voice disturbs my soul. Speak! I will know
Thy right to question me.
Rai. (throwing off his disguise, stands before him
in the full dress of a Crusader?)
Aym. Brother! (Retreating from him with horror.)
—Her blood is on your hands!—keep back!
Rai. (scornfully.) Nay, keep the Paynim's garb from touching mine.
Answer me thence!—what dost thou here?
Aym. You shrink
From your own work!—you, that have made me thus!
Wherefore are you here? Are you not afraid
To stand beneath the awful midnight sky,
And you a murderer? Leave me.
Rai. I lift up
No murderer's brow to heaven!
Aym. You dare speak thus!—
Do not the bright stars, with their searching rays,
Strike through your guilty soul? Oh, no!—tis well,
Passing well! Murder! Make the earth's harvests grow
With Paynim blood!—Heaven wills it! The free air,
The sunshine—I forgot—they were not made
For infidels. Blot out the race from day!
Who talks of murder? Murder! when you die
Claim your soul's place of happiness i' the name
Of that good deed!
(In a tone of deep feeling.)
If you had loved a flower
I would not have destroy'd it!
Rai. (with emotion.) Brother!
Aym. (impetuously.) No!—
No brother now. She knelt to you in vain;
And that hath set a gulf—a boundless gulf—
Between our souls. Your very face is changed—
There's a red cloud shadowing it: your forehead wears
The marks of blood—her blood!
(In a triumphant tone)
But you prevail not! You have made the dead
The mighty—the victorious! Yes! you thought
To dash her image into fragments down,
