Chapter 32

ANOTHER STREET.

The Muffled Figure and LUIS.

LUIS. Sir, already we have issued From that street; if aught there stopped us, We are here alone, and may Hand to hand resume the combat. And since powerless is my sword Thee to wound, I throw me on thee To know who thou art. Declare, Art thou demon, man, or monster? What! no answer? Then I thus Dare myself to solve the problem, [He tears the cloak from the Figure, and finds beneath it a skeleton. And find out . . . . Oh, save me, heaven! God! what's this I see? what horrid Spectacle! What frightful vision! What death-threatening fearful portent! Stiff and stony corse, who art thou? That of dust and ashes formed Now dost live?

THE FIGURE. Not know thyself? This is thy most faithful portrait; I, alas! am Luis Enius. [Disappears.*

[footnote] *The interview between Luis Enius and the Skeleton, says a recent writer, "is a scene truly Calderonic -- the hour, the place, the intended assassin, and the sudden reflection of himself, with his guilty conscience impersonate before him; it reminds us of that wild fable of Jeremy Taylor or Fuller, about the bird with a human face, that feeds on human flesh until it chances to see its reflection in a stream, and then it pines away for grief that it has killed its fellow." -- WESTMINSTER REVIEW, vol. liv. p. 306.

LUIS. Save me, heaven! what words of horror! Save me, heaven! what sight of woe! Prey of shadows and misfortunes. Ah, I die. [He falls on the ground.

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