Your hall 's my court, your heart is my tribunal.
Be just, and I'll be merciful!
Sieg. You merciful!

You! base calumniator!

Gabor. I. Twill rest

With me at last to be so.

In secret passages known to

You concealed me—
yourself,

You said, and to none else. At dead of night,
Weary with watching in the dark, and dubious
Of tracing back my way, I saw a glimmer,
Through distant crannies, of a twinkling light:
I followed it, and reached a door-a secret
Portal-which opened to the chamber, where,
With cautious hand and slow, having first undone
As much as made a crevice of the fastening,
I looked through and beheld a purple bed,
And on it Stralenheim

Sieg. Asleep. And yet

You slew him!-Wretch !

Gabor. He was already slain,

And bleeding like a sacrifice. My own
Blood became ice.

Sieg. But he was all alone!

You saw none else? You did not see the

Gabor. No,

[He pauses from agitation.

He, whom you dare not name, nor even I

Scarce dare to recollect, was not then in

The chamber.

Sieg. [To ULRIC.] Then, my boy! thou art guiltless

still

Thou bad'st me say I was so once-oh, now

Do thou as much!

Gabor. Be patient! I can not

Recede now, though it shake the very walls
Which frown above us. You remember-or
If not, your son does-that the locks were changed
Beneath HIS chief inspection, on the morn
Which led to this same night: how he had entered
He best knows-but within an antechamber,
The door of which was half ajar, I saw

A man who washed his bloody hands, and oft

With stern and anxious glance gazed back upon
The bleeding body-but it moved no more.
Sieg. Oh! God of fathers!

Gabor. I beheld his features

As I see yours-but yours they were not, though
Resembling them-behold them in Count Ulric's!
Sieg. This is so-

Gabor. [Interrupting him.] Nay, but hear me to the end!
Now you must do so. I conceived myself
Betrayed by you and him (for now I saw
There was some tie between you) into this
Pretended den of refuge, to become

The victim of your guilt; and my first thought
Was vengeance: but, though armed with a short poniard
(Having left my sword without), I was no match
For him at any time, as had been proved

That morning-either in address or force.

I turned and fled-i' the dark: chance rather than
Skill made me gain the secret door of the hall,
And thence the chamber where you slept: if I
Had found you waking, heaven alone can tell
What vengeance and suspicion might have prompted;
But ne'er slept guilt as Werner slept that night.

Sieg. And yet I had horrid dreams! and such brief sleep,

Then stars had not gone down when I awoke.

Why didst thou spare me? I dreamt of my father-
And now my dream is out!

Gabor. 'Tis not my fault,

If I have read it.-Well, I fled and hid me-
Chance led me here after so many moons-
And showed me Werner in Count Siegendorf!
Werner, whom I had sought in huts in vain,
Inhabited the palace of a sovereign!

You sought me and have found me-now you know
My secret, and may weigh its worth.

Sieg. [After a pause.] Indeed!

Gabor. Is it revenge or justice which inspires

Your meditation?

Sieg. Neither. I was weighing

The value of your secret.

Gabor. You shall know it

At once ;- -When you were poor, and I, though poor,
Rich enough to relieve such poverty

As might have envied mine, I offered you

My purse-you would not share it :-I'll be franker
With you you are wealthy, noble, trusted by
The imperial powers-you understand me?

Sieg. Yes.

Gabor. Not quite. You think me venal, and scarce true: 'Tis no less true, however, that my fortunes

Have made me both at present. You shall aid me;

I would have aided you-and also have

Been somewhat damaged in my name to save

Yours and your son's.

Weigh well what I have said.

BYRON.

323

HUMOROUS PIECES.

ADDRESS TO AN EGYPTIAN MUMMY.

Extracted, by permission of Henry Colburn, Esq., from the late HORACE SMITH'S " Gaieties and Gravities."

AND thou hast walked about (how strange a story!)
In Thebes' street three thousand years ago;
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And Time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous.

Speak for thou long enough hast acted dummy,—
Thou hast a tongue, come, let us hear its tune;
Thou 'rt standing on thy legs, above ground, Mummy!
Revisiting the glimpses of the moon,

Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,
But with thy bones, and flesh, and limbs, and features.

Tell us, for doubtless thou canst recollect,

To whom should we assign the Sphinx's fame? Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect,

Of either pyramid that bears his name?

Is Pompey's Pillar really a misnomer?

Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer?

Perhaps thou wert a mason, and forbidden

By oath, to tell the mysteries of thy trade; Then say what secret melody was hidden

In Memnon's statue, which at sun-rise played? Perhaps thou wert a priest, and hast been dealing In human blood, and horrors past revealing.

Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat,
Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass;
Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer's hat,

Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass,
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,

A torch at the great temple's dedication.

I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,
Has any Roman soldier mauled or knuckled,
For thou wert dead and buried, and embalmed,
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled!

Antiquity appears to have begun,

Long after thy primeval race was run.

Thou couldst develop, if that withered tongue
Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen,
How the world looked when it was fresh and young,
And the great deluge still had left it green;
Or was it then so old that history's pages
Contained no record of its early ages?

Still silent, incommunicative elf!

Art sworn to secresy? then keep thy vows;

But prythee tell us something of thyself,

Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house!

Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered,

What thou hast seen, what strange adventures numbered?

Since first thy form was in this box extended,

We have, above-ground, seen some strange mutations;

The Roman empire has begun and ended,

New worlds have risen-we have lost old nationsAnd countless kings have into dust been humbled, While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.

Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head,
When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,
Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread,
O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,

And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?