Chapter 393

Enter MARGARET CURL, bearing a golden cup of wine; she places it hastily upon the table, and leans, pale and trembling, against a chair.

MELVIL. How, madam! What has frightened you?

KENNEDY. Oh God!

BURGOYN. Speak, madam!

CURL. What, alas! have I beheld!

MELVIL. Come to yourself, and say what you have seen!

CURL. As I went down the staircase which conducts To the great hall below, a door stood open; I looked into the chamber, and I saw-- Oh heaven!

MELVIL. What saw you?

CURL. All the walls were hung With black; a spacious scaffold, too, o'erspread With sable cloth, was raised above the floor, And in the middle of the scaffold stood A dreadful sable block! upon it lay A naked, polished axe:--the hall was full Of cruel people, crowding round the scaffold Who, with a horrid thirst for human blood, Seemed waiting for the victim!

THE WOMEN. Gracious heaven, Protect our queen!

MELVIL. Be calm; the queen approaches.