Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/706

 688 RUDYARD KIPLING'S VERSE

Gow. The Heavens hold up still. Earth opens not and this dew's mere water. What shall a man think of it all ? (To GARDENER.) Not dead yet, sirrah? I bade you follow the Prince. Despatch!

GARDENER. Some kind soul pluck out the dagger. Why did you slay me ? I'd done no wrong. I'd ha' kept it secret till my dying day. But not now not now! I'm dying. The Prince fell from the Queen's chamber window. I saw it in the nut-alley. He was

FERDINAND. But what made you in the nut-alley at that hour?

GARDENER. No wrong. No more than another man's wife. Jocasta of the still-room. She'd kissed me good-night too; but that's over with the rest. . . . I've stumbled on the Prince's beastly loves, and I pay for all. Let me pass!

Gow. Count it your fortune, honest man. You would have revealed it to your woman at the next meeting. You fleshmongers are all one feather. (Plucks out the dagger.) Go in peace and lay your death to Fortune's door. He's sped thank Fortune!

FERDINAND. Who knows not Fortune, glutted on easy thrones,

Stealing from feasts as rare to coney-catch Privily in the hedgerows for a clown, With that same cruel-lustful hand and eye, Those nails and wedges, that one hammer and lead, And the very gerb of long-stored lightning loosed. Yesterday 'gainst some King.

THE KING. I have pursued with prayers where my heart

warns me My soul shall overtake

Enter the QUEEN