Act
II
Scene
I
London. A room in Lydia’s house.
Enter Lydia and Lucian.
Lydia
Welcome, dear cousin, to my London house.
Of late you have been chary of your visits.
Lucian
I have been greatly occupied of late.
The minister to whom I act as scribe
In Downing Street was born in Birmingham,
And, like a thoroughbred commercial statesman,
Splits his infinitives, which I, poor slave,
Must reunite, though all the time my heart
Yearns for my gentle coz’s company.
Lydia
Lucian: there is some other reason. Think!
Since England was a nation every mood
Her scribes have prepositionally split;
But thine avoidance dates from yestermonth.
Lucian
There is a man I like not haunts this house.
Lydia
Thou speak’st of Cashel Byron?
Lucian
Aye, of him.
Hast thou forgotten that eventful night
When as we gathered were at Hoskyn House
To hear a lecture by Herr Abendgasse,
He placed a single finger on my chest,
And I, ensorceled, would have sunk supine
Had not a chair received my falling form.
Lydia
Pooh! That was but by way of illustration.
Lucian
What right had he to illustrate his point
Upon my person? Was I his assistant
That he should try experiments on me
As Simpson did on his with chloroform?
Now, by the cannon balls of Galileo
He hath unmanned me: all my nerve is gone.
This very morning my official chief,
Tapping with friendly forefinger this button,
Levelled me like a thunderstricken elm
Flat upon the Colonial Office floor.
Lydia
Fancies, coz.
Lucian
Fancies! Fits! the chief said fits!
Delirium tremens! the chlorotic dance
Of Vitus! What could anyone have thought?
Your ruffian friend hath ruined me. By Heaven,
I tremble at a thumbnail. Give me drink.
Lydia
What ho, without there! Bashville.
Bashville
Without.
Coming, madam.
Enter Bashville.
Lydia
My cousin ails, Bashville. Procure some wet. Exit Bashville.
Lucian
Some wet!!! Where learnt you that atrocious word?
This is the language of a flower-girl.
Lydia
True. It is horrible. Said I “Some wet”?
I meant, some drink. Why did I say “Some wet”?
Am I ensorceled too? “Some wet”! Fie! fie!
I feel as though some hateful thing had stained me.
Oh, Lucian, how could I have said “Some wet”?
Lucian
The horrid conversation of this man
Hath numbed thy once unfailing sense of fitness.
Lydia
Nay, he speaks very well: he’s literate:
Shakespeare he quotes unconsciously.
Lucian
And yet
Anon he talks pure pothouse.
Enter Bashville.
Bashville
Sir: your potion.
Lucian
Thanks. He drinks. I am better.
A Newsboy
Calling without.
Extra special Star!
Result of the great fight! Name of the winner!
Lydia
Who calls so loud?
Bashville
The papers, madam.
Lydia
Why?
Hath ought momentous happened?
Bashville
Madam: yes. He produces a newspaper.
All England for these thrilling paragraphs
A week has waited breathless.
Lydia
Read them us.
Bashville
Reading.
“At noon today, unknown to the police,
Within a thousand miles of Wormwood Scrubbs,
Th’ Australian Champion and his challenger,
The Flying Dutchman, formerly engaged
I’ the mercantile marine, fought to a finish.
Lord Worthington, the well-known sporting peer
Acted as referee.”
Lydia
Lord Worthington!
Bashville
“The bold Ned Skene revisited the ropes
To hold the bottle for his quondam novice;
Whilst in the seaman’s corner were assembled
Professor Palmer and the Chelsea Snob.
Mellish, whose epigastrium has been hurt,
’Tis said, by accident at Wiltstoken,
Looked none the worse in the Australian’s corner.
The Flying Dutchman wore the Union Jack:
His colors freely sold amid the crowd;
But Cashel’s well-known spot of white on blue—”
Lydia
Whose, did you say?
Bashville
Cashel’s, my lady.
Lydia
Lucian:
Your hand—a chair—
Bashville
Madam: you’re ill.
Lydia
Proceed.
What you have read I do not understand;
Yet I will hear it through. Proceed.
Lucian
Proceed.
Bashville
“But Cashel’s well-known spot of white on blue
Was fairly rushed for. Time was called at twelve,
When, with a smile of confidence upon
His ocean-beaten mug—”
Lydia
His mug?
Lucian
Explaining.
His face.
Bashville
Continuing.
“The Dutchman came undaunted to the scratch,
But found the champion there already. Both
Most heartily shook hands, amid the cheers
Of their encouraged backers. Two to one
Was offered on the Melbourne nonpareil;
And soon, so fit the Flying Dutchman seemed,
Found takers everywhere. No time was lost
In getting to the business of the day.
The Dutchman led at once, and seemed to land
On Byron’s dicebox; but the seaman’s reach,
Too short for execution at long shots,
Did not get fairly home upon the ivory;
And Byron had the best of the exchange.”
Lydia
I do not understand. What were they doing?
Lucian
Fighting with naked fists.
Lydia
Oh, horrible!
I’ll hear no more. Or stay: how did it end?
Was Cashel hurt?
Lucian
To Bashville.
Skip to the final round.
Bashville
“Round Three: the rumors that had gone about
Of a breakdown in Byron’s recent training
Seemed quite confirmed. Upon the call of time
He rose, and, looking anything but cheerful,
Proclaimed with every breath Bellows to Mend.
At this point six to one was freely offered
Upon the Dutchman; and Lord Worthington
Plunged at this figure till he stood to lose
A fortune should the Dutchman, as seemed certain,
Take down the number of the Panley boy.
The Dutchman, glutton as we know he is,
Seemed this time likely to go hungry. Cashel
Was clearly groggy as he slipped the sailor,
Who, not to be denied, followed him up,
Forcing the fighting mid tremendous cheers.”
Lydia
Oh stop—no more—or tell the worst at once.
I’ll be revenged. Bashville: call the police.
This brutal sailor shall be made to know
There’s law in England.
Lucian
Do not interrupt him:
Mine ears are thirsting. Finish, man. What next?
Bashville
“Forty to one, the Dutchman’s friends exclaimed.
Done, said Lord Worthington, who showed himself
A sportsman every inch. Barely the bet
Was booked, when, at the reeling champion’s jaw
The sailor, bent on winning out of hand,
Sent in his right. The issue seemed a cert,
When Cashel, ducking smartly to his left,
Cross-countered like a hundredweight of brick—”
Lucian
Death and damnation!
Lydia
Oh, what does it mean?
Bashville
“The Dutchman went to grass, a beaten man.”
Lydia
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! Oh, well done, Cashel!
Bashville
“A scene of indescribable excitement
Ensued; for it was now quite evident
That Byron’s grogginess had all along
Been feigned to make the market for his backers.
We trust this sample of colonial smartness
Will not find imitators on this side.
The losers settled up like gentlemen;
But many felt that Byron showed bad taste
In taking old Ned Skene upon his back,
And, with Bob Mellish tucked beneath his oxter,
Sprinting a hundred yards to show the crowd
The perfect pink of his condition”—A knock.
Lydia
Turning pale.
Bashville
Didst hear? A knock.
Bashville
Madam: ’tis Byron’s knock.
Shall I admit him?
Lucian
Reeking from the ring!
Oh, monstrous! Say you’re out.
Lydia
Send him away.
I will not see the wretch. How dare he keep
Secrets from me? I’ll punish him. Pray say
I’m not at home. Bashville turns to go. Yet stay. I am afraid
He will not come again.
Lucian
A consummation
Devoutly to be wished by any lady.
Pray, do you wish this man to come again?
Lydia
No, Lucian. He hath used me very ill.
He should have told me. I will ne’er forgive him.
Say, Not at home.
Bashville
Yes, madam. Exit.
Lydia
Stay—
Lucian
Stopping her.
No, Lydia:
You shall not countermand that proper order.
Oh, would you cast the treasure of your mind,
The thousands at your bank, and, above all,
Your unassailable social position
Before this soulless mass of beef and brawn?
Lydia
Nay, coz: you’re prejudiced.
Cashel
Without.
Liar and slave!
Lydia
What words were those?
Lucian
The man is drunk with slaughter.
Enter Bashville running: he shuts the door and locks it.
Bashville
Save yourselves: at the staircase foot the champion
Sprawls on the mat, by trick of wrestler tripped;
But when he rises, woe betide us all!
Lydia
Who bade you treat my visitor with violence?
Bashville
He would not take my answer; thrust the door
Back in my face; gave me the lie i’ the throat;
Averred he felt your presence in his bones.
I said he should feel mine there too, and felled him;
Then fled to bar your door.
Lydia
O lover’s instinct!
He felt my presence. Well, let him come in.
We must not fail in courage with a fighter.
Unlock the door.
Lucian
Stop. Like all women, Lydia,
You have the courage of immunity.
To strike you were against his code of honor;
But me, above the belt, he may perform on
T’ th’ height of his profession. Also Bashville.
Bashville
Think not of me, sir. Let him do his worst.
Oh, if the valor of my heart could weigh
The fatal difference twixt his weight and mine,
A second battle should he do this day:
Nay, though outmatched I be, let but my mistress
Give me the word: instant I’ll take him on
Here—now—at catchweight. Better bite the carpet
A man, than fly, a coward.
Lucian
Bravely said:
I will assist you with the poker.
Lydia
No:
I will not have him touched. Open the door.
Bashville
Destruction knocks thereat. I smile, and open.
Bashville opens the door. Dead silence. Cashel enters, in tears. A solemn pause.
Cashel
You know my secret?
Lydia
Yes.
Cashel
And thereupon
You bade your servant fling me from your door.
Lydia
I bade my servant say I was not here.
Cashel
To Bashville.
Why didst thou better thy instruction, man?
Hadst thou but said, “She bade me tell thee this,”
Thoudst burst my heart. I thank thee for thy mercy.
Lydia
Oh, Lucian, didst thou call him “drunk with slaughter”?
Canst thou refrain from weeping at his woe?
Cashel
To Lucian.
The unwritten law that shields the amateur
Against professional resentment, saves thee.
O coward, to traduce behind their backs
Defenceless prizefighters!
Lucian
Thou dost avow
Thou art a prizefighter.
Cashel
It was my glory.
I had hoped to offer to my lady there
My belts, my championships, my heaped-up stakes,
My undefeated record; but I knew
Behind their blaze a hateful secret lurked.
Lydia
Another secret?
Lucian
Is there worse to come?
Cashel
Know ye not then my mother is an actress?
Lucian
How horrible!
Lydia
Nay, nay: how interesting!
Cashel
A thousand victories cannot wipe out
That birthstain. Oh, my speech bewrayeth it:
My earliest lesson was the player’s speech
In Hamlet; and to this day I express myself
More like a mobled queen than like a man
Of flesh and blood. Well may your cousin sneer!
What’s Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba?
Lucian
Injurious upstart: if by Hecuba
Thou pointest darkly at my lovely cousin,
Know that she is to me, and I to her,
What never canst thou be. I do defy thee;
And maugre all the odds thy skill doth give,
Outside I will await thee.
Lydia
I forbid
Expressly any such duello. Bashville:
The door. Put Mr. Webber in a hansom,
And bid the driver hie to Downing Street.
No answer: ’tis my will.
Exeunt Lucian and Bashville.
And now, farewell.
You must not come again, unless indeed
You can some day look in my eyes and say:
Lydia: my occupation’s gone.
Cashel
Ah, no:
It would remind you of my wretched mother.
O God, let me be natural a moment!
What other occupation can I try?
What would you have me be?
Lydia
A gentleman.
Cashel
A gentleman! I, Cashel Byron, stoop
To be the thing that bets on me! the fool
I flatter at so many coins a lesson!
The screaming creature who beside the ring
Gambles with basest wretches for my blood,
And pays with money that he never earned!
Let me die brokenhearted rather!
Lydia
But
You need not be an idle gentleman.
I call you one of Nature’s gentlemen.
Cashel
That’s the collection for the loser, Lydia.
I am not wont to need it. When your friends
Contest elections, and at foot o’ th’ poll
Rue their presumption, ’tis their wont to claim
A moral victory. In a sort they are
Nature’s M.P.’s. I am not yet so threadbare
As to accept these consolation stakes.
Lydia
You are offended with me.
Cashel
Yes, I am.
I can put up with much; but—“Nature’s gentleman”!
I thank your ladyship of Lyons, but
Must beg to be excused.
Lydia
But surely, surely,
To be a prizefighter, and maul poor mariners
With naked knuckles, is no work for you.
Cashel
Thou dost arraign the inattentive Fates
That weave my thread of life in ruder patterns
Than these that lie, antimacassarly,
Asprent thy drawing room. As well demand
Why I at birth chose to begin my life
A speechless babe, hairless, incontinent,
Hobbling upon all fours, a nurse’s nuisance?
Or why I do propose to lose my strength,
To blanch my hair, to let the gums recede
Far up my yellowing teeth, and finally
Lie down and moulder in a rotten grave?
Only one thing more foolish could have been,
And that was to be born, not man, but woman.
This was thy folly, why rebuk’st thou mine?
Lydia
These are not things of choice.
Cashel
And did I choose
My quick divining eye, my lightning hand,
My springing muscle and untiring heart?
Did I implant the instinct in the race
That found a use for these, and said to me,
Fight for us, and be fame and fortune thine?
Lydia
But there are other callings in the world.
Cashel
Go tell thy painters to turn stockbrokers,
Thy poet friends to stoop o’er merchants’ desks
And pen prose records of the gains of greed.
Tell bishops that religion is outworn,
And that the Pampa to the horsebreaker
Opes new careers. Bid the professor quit
His fraudulent pedantries, and do i’ the world
The thing he would teach others. Then return
To me and say: Cashel: they have obeyed;
And on that pyre of sacrifice I, too,
Will throw my championship.
Lydia
But ’tis so cruel.
Cashel
Is it so? I have hardly noticed that,
So cruel are all callings. Yet this hand,
That many a two days’ bruise hath ruthless given,
Hath kept no dungeon locked for twenty years,
Hath slain no sentient creature for my sport.
I am too squeamish for your dainty world,
That cowers behind the gallows and the lash,
The world that robs the poor, and with their spoil
Does what its tradesmen tell it. Oh, your ladies!
Sealskinned and egret-feathered; all defiance
To Nature; cowering if one say to them
“What will the servants think?” Your gentlemen!
Your tailor-tyrannized visitors of whom
Flutter of wing and singing in the wood
Make chickenbutchers. And your medicine men!
Groping for cures in the tormented entrails
Of friendly dogs. Pray have you asked all these
To change their occupations? Find you mine
So grimly crueller? I cannot breathe
An air so petty and so poisonous.
Lydia
But find you not their manners very nice?
Cashel
To me, perfection. Oh, they condescend
With a rare grace. Your duke, who condescends
Almost to the whole world, might for a Man
Pass in the eyes of those who never saw
The duke capped with a prince. See then, ye gods,
The duke turn footman, and his eager dame
Sink the great lady in the obsequious housemaid!
Oh, at such moments I could wish the Court
Had but one breadbasket, that with my fist
I could make all its windy vanity
Gasp itself out on the gravel. Fare you well.
I did not choose my calling; but at least
I can refrain from being a gentleman.
Lydia
You say farewell to me without a pang.
Cashel
My calling hath apprenticed me to pangs.
This is a rib-bender; but I can bear it.
It is a lonely thing to be a champion.
Lydia
It is a lonelier thing to be a woman.
Cashel
Be lonely then. Shall it be said of thee
That for his brawn thou misalliance mad’st
Wi’ the Prince of Ruffians? Never. Go thy ways;
Or, if thou hast nostalgia of the mud,
Wed some bedoggéd wretch that on the slot
Of gilded snobbery, ventre à terre,
Will hunt through life with eager nose on earth
And hang thee thick with diamonds. I am rich;
But all my gold was fought for with my hands.
Lydia
What dost thou mean by rich?
Cashel
There is a man,
Hight Paradise, vaunted unconquerable,
Hath dared to say he will be glad to hear from me.
I have replied that none can hear from me
Until a thousand solid pounds be staked.
His friends have confidently found the money.
Ere fall of leaf that money shall be mine;
And then I shall possess ten thousand pounds.
I had hoped to tempt thee with that monstrous sum.
Lydia
Thou silly Cashel, ’tis but a week’s income.
I did propose to give thee three times that
For pocket money when we two were wed.
Cashel
Give me my hat. I have been fooling here.
Now, by the Hebrew lawgiver, I thought
That only in America such revenues
Were decent deemed. Enough. My dream is dreamed.
Your gold weighs like a mountain on my chest.
Farewell.
Lydia
The golden mountain shall be thine
The day thou quit’st thy horrible profession.
Cashel
Tempt me not, woman. It is honor calls.
Slave to the Ring I rest until the face
Of Paradise be changed.
Enter Bashville.
Bashville
Madam, your carriage,
Ordered by you at two. ’Tis now half-past.
Cashel
Sdeath! is it half-past two? The king! the king!
Lydia
The king! What mean you?
Cashel
I must meet a monarch
This very afternoon at Islington.
Lydia
At Islington! You must be mad.
Cashel
A cab!
Go call a cab; and let a cab be called;
And let the man that calls it be thy footman.
Lydia
You are not well. You shall not go alone.
My carriage waits. I must accompany you.
I go to find my hat. Exit.
Cashel
Like Paracelsus,
Who went to find his soul. To Bashville. And now, young man,
How comes it that a fellow of your inches,
So deft a wrestler and so bold a spirit,
Can stoop to be a flunkey? Call on me
On your next evening out. I’ll make a man of you.
Surely you are ambitious and aspire—
Bashville
To be a butler and draw corks; wherefore,
By Heaven, I will draw yours.
He hits Cashel on the nose, and runs out.
Cashel
Thoughtfully putting the side of his forefinger to his nose, and studying the blood on it.
Too quick for me!
There’s money in this youth.
Reenter Lydia, hatted and gloved.
Lydia
O Heaven! you bleed.
Cashel
Lend me a key or other frigid object,
That I may put it down my back, and staunch
The welling life stream.
Lydia
Giving him her keys. Oh, what have you done?
Cashel
Flush on the boko napped your footman’s left.
Lydia
I do not understand.
Cashel
True. Pardon me.
I have received a blow upon the nose
In sport from Bashville. Next, ablution; else
I shall be total gules. He hurries out.
Lydia
How well he speaks!
There is a silver trumpet in his lips
That stirs me to the finger ends. His nose
Dropt lovely color: ’tis a perfect blood.
I would ’twere mingled with mine own!
Enter Bashville.
What now?
Bashville
Madam, the coachman can no longer wait:
The horses will take cold.
Lydia
I do beseech him
A moment’s grace. Oh, mockery of wealth!
The third class passenger unchidden rides
Whither and when he will: obsequious trams
Await him hourly: subterranean tubes
With tireless coursers whisk him through the town;
But we, the rich, are slaves to Houyhnhnms:
We wait upon their colds, and frowst all day
Indoors, if they but cough or spurn their hay.
Bashville
Madam, an omnibus to Euston Road,
And thence t’ th’ Angel—
Enter Cashel.
Lydia
Let us haste, my love:
The coachman is impatient.
Cashel
Did he guess
He stays for Cashel Byron, he’d outwait
Pompei’s sentinel. Let us away.
This day of deeds, as yet but half begun,
Must ended be in merrie Islington.
Exeunt Lydia and Cashel.
Bashville
Gods! how she hangs on’s arm! I am alone.
Now let me lift the cover from my soul.
O wasted humbleness! Deluded diffidence!
How often have I said, Lie down, poor footman:
She’ll never stoop to thee, rear as thou wilt
Thy powder to the sky. And now, by Heaven,
She stoops below me; condescends upon
This hero of the pothouse, whose exploits,
Writ in my character from my last place,
Would damn me into ostlerdom. And yet
There’s an eternal justice in it; for
By so much as the ne’er subduèd Indian
Excels the servile Negro, doth this ruffian
Precedence take of me. “Ich dien.” Damnation!
I serve. My motto should have been, “I scalp.”
And yet I do not bear the yoke for gold.
Because I love her I have blacked her boots;
Because I love her I have cleaned her knives,
Doing in this the office of a boy,
Whilst, like the celebrated maid that milks
And does the meanest chares, I’ve shared the passions
Of Cleopatra. It has been my pride
To give her place the greater altitude
By lowering mine, and of her dignity
To be so jealous that my cheek has flamed
Even at the thought of such a deep disgrace
As love for such a one as I would be
For such a one as she; and now! and now!
A prizefighter! O irony! O bathos!
To have made way for this! Oh, Bashville, Bashville:
Why hast thou thought so lowly of thyself,
So heavenly high of her? Let what will come,
My love must speak: ’twas my respect was dumb.
Scene
II
The Agricultural Hall in Islington, crowded with spectators. In the arena a throne, with a boxing ring before it. A balcony above on the right, occupied by persons of fashion: among others, Lydia and Lord Worthington.
Flourish. Enter Lucian and Cetewayo, with Chiefs in attendance.
Cetewayo
Is this the Hall of Husbandmen?
Lucian
It is.
Cetewayo
Are these anaemic dogs the English people?
Lucian
Mislike us not for our complexions,
The pallid liveries of the pall of smoke
Belched by the mighty chimneys of our factories,
And by the million patent kitchen ranges
Of happy English homes.
Cetewayo
When first I came
I deemed those chimneys the fuliginous altars
Of some infernal god. I now perceive
The English dare not look upon the sky.
They are moles and owls: they call upon the soot
To cover them.
Lucian
You cannot understand
The greatness of this people, Cetewayo.
You are a savage, reasoning like a child.
Each pallid English face conceals a brain
Whose powers are proven in the works of Newton
And in the plays of the immortal Shakespeare.
There is not one of all the thousands here
But, if you placed him naked in the desert,
Would presently construct a steam engine,
And lay a cable t’ th’ Antipodes.
Cetewayo
Have I been brought a million miles by sea
To learn how men can lie! Know, Father Webber,
Men become civilized through twin diseases,
Terror and Greed to wit: these two conjoined
Become the grisly parents of Invention.
Why does the trembling white with frantic toil
Of hand and brain produce the magic gun
That slays a mile off, whilst the manly Zulu
Dares look his foe i’ the face; fights foot to foot;
Lives in the present; drains the Here and Now;
Makes life a long reality, and death
A moment only! whilst your Englishman
Glares on his burning candle’s winding-sheets,
Counting the steps of his approaching doom,
And in the murky corners ever sees
Two horrid shadows, Death and Poverty:
In the which anguish an unnatural edge
Comes on his frighted brain, which straight devises
Strange frauds by which to filch unearnèd gold,
Mad crafts by which to slay unfacéd foes,
Until at last his agonized desire
Makes possibility its slave. And then—
Horrible climax! All-undoing spite!—
Th’ importunate clutching of the coward’s hand
From wearied Nature Devastation’s secrets
Doth wrest; when straight the brave black-livered man
Is blown explosively from off the globe;
And Death and Dread, with their white-livered slaves
O’er-run the earth, and through their chattering teeth
Stammer the words “Survival of the Fittest.”
Enough of this: I came not here to talk.
Thou say’st thou hast two white-faced ones who dare
Fight without guns, and spearless, to the death.
Let them be brought.
Lucian
They fight not to the death,
But under strictest rules: as, for example,
Half of their persons shall not be attacked;
Nor shall they suffer blows when they fall down,
Nor stroke of foot at any time. And, further,
That frequent opportunities of rest
With succor and refreshment be secured them.
Cetewayo
Ye gods, what cowards! Zululand, my Zululand:
Personified Pusillanimity
Hath ta’en thee from the bravest of the brave!
Lucian
Lo, the rude savage whose untutored mind
Cannot perceive self-evidence, and doubts
That Brave and English mean the selfsame thing!
Cetewayo
Well, well, produce these heroes. I surmise
They will be carried by their nurses, lest
Some barking dog or bumbling bee should scare them.
Cetewayo takes his state. Enter Paradise.
Lydia
What hateful wretch is this whose mighty thews
Presage destruction to his adversaries?
Lord Worthington
’Tis Paradise.
Lydia
He of whom Cashel spoke?
A dreadful thought ices my heart. Oh, why
Did Cashel leave us at the door?
Enter Cashel.
Lord Worthington
Behold!
The champion comes.
Lydia
Oh, I could kiss him now,
Here, before all the world. His boxing things
Render him most attractive. But I fear
Yon villain’s fists may maul him.
Lord Worthington
Have no fear.
Hark! the king speaks.
Cetewayo
Ye sons of the white queen:
Tell me your names and deeds ere ye fall to.
Paradise
Your royal highness, you beholds a bloke
What gets his living honest by his fists.
I may not have the polish of some toffs
As I could mention on; but up to now
No man has took my number down. I scale
Close on twelve stun; my age is twenty-three;
And at Bill Richardson’s Blue Anchor pub
Am to be heard of any day by such
As likes the job. I don’t know, governor,
As ennythink remains for me to say.
Cetewayo
Six wives and thirty oxen shalt thou have
If on the sand thou leave thy foeman dead.
Methinks he looks full scornfully on thee.
To Cashel. Ha! dost thou not so?
Cashel
Sir, I do beseech you
To name the bone, or limb, or special place
Where you would have me hit him with this fist.
Cetewayo
Thou hast a noble brow; but much I fear
Thine adversary will disfigure it.
Cashel
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends
Rough hew them how we will. Give me the gloves.
The Master of the Revels
Paradise, a professor.
Cashel Byron,
Also professor. Time!
They spar.
Lydia
Eternity
It seems to me until this fight be done.
Cashel
Dread monarch: this is called the upper cut,
And this a hook-hit of mine own invention.
The hollow region where I plant this blow
Is called the mark. My left, you will observe,
I chiefly use for long shots: with my right
Aiming beside the angle of the jaw
And landing with a certain delicate screw
I without violence knock my foeman out.
Mark how he falls forward upon his face!
The rules allow ten seconds to get up;
And as the man is still quite silly, I
Might safely finish him; but my respect
For your most gracious majesty’s desire
To see some further triumphs of the science
Of self-defence postpones awhile his doom.
Paradise
How can a bloke do hisself proper justice
With pillows on his fists?
He tears off his gloves and attacks Cashel with his bare knuckles.
The Crowd
Unfair! The rules!
Cetewayo
The joy of battle surges boiling up
And bids me join the melee. Isandhlana
And Victory!
He falls on the bystanders.
The Chiefs
Victory and Isandhlana!
They run amok. General panic and stampede. The ring is swept away.
Lucian
Forbear these most irregular proceedings.
Police! Police!
He engages Cetewayo with his umbrella. The balcony comes down with a crash. Screams from its occupants. Indescribable confusion.
Cashel
Dragging Lydia from the struggling heap.
My love, my love, art hurt?
Lydia
No, no; but save my sore o’ermatchéd cousin.
A Policeman
Give us a lead, sir. Save the English flag.
Africa tramples on it.
Cashel
Africa!
Not all the continents whose mighty shoulders
The dancing diamonds of the seas bedeck
Shall trample on the blue with spots of white.
Now, Lydia, mark thy lover.
He charges the Zulus.
Lydia
Hercules
Cannot withstand him. See: the king is down;
The tallest chief is up, heels over head,
Tossed corklike o’er my Cashel’s sinewy back;
And his lieutenant all deflated gasps
For breath upon the sand. The others fly
In vain: his fist o’er magic distances
Like a chameleon’s tongue shoots to its mark;
And the last African upon his knees
Sues piteously for quarter. Rushing into Cashel’s arms. Oh, my hero:
Thou’st saved us all this day.
Cashel
’Twas all for thee.
Cetewayo
Trying to rise. Have I been struck by lightning?
Lucian
Sir, your conduct
Can only be described as most ungentlemanly.
Policeman
One of the prone is white.
Cashel
’Tis Paradise.
Policeman
He’s choking: he has something in his mouth.
Lydia
To Cashel.
Oh Heaven! there is blood upon your hip.
You’re hurt.
Cashel
The morsel in yon wretch’s mouth
Was bitten out of me.
Sensation. Lydia screams and swoons in Cashel’s arms.