What do you mean by this? Am I governing this prison or are you?"

"Don Pizarro," Rocco spoke calmly. "It is the King's birthday, and I
thought it might be politic for you to give the prisoners a little
liberty, especially as the Minister was coming. It will look well to
him." At that Pizarro was somewhat appeased, but nevertheless he
ordered the men back to their cells. It was a mournful procession,
back to dungeon darkness. As they went they sang:

[Music:

Farewell, thou warm and sunny beam,
How soon thy joys have faded,
How soon thy joys have faded!]

While they were singing, Rocco once more tried to soften Pizarro's
heart.

"Wilt thou not let the condemned prisoner live another day, your
highness?" The request enraged Pizarro still more.

"Enough! Now have done with your whimpering. Take that youth of thine
who is to help, and be about the job. Go! and let me hear no more."
With that awful voice of revenge and cruelty in her ears, the unhappy
Leonora followed Rocco to the dungeons, to dig her husband's grave.

ACT II

Down in the very bowels of the earth, as it seemed to Leonora, was
Florestan's dungeon. There he sat, manacled, despairing, with no ray
of light to cheer him, and his thoughts occupied only with his visions
of the beautiful home he had known, and of his wife, Leonora. When
Leonora and Rocco entered the dungeon, Florestan had fallen, half
sleeping, half dreaming upon the floor of his cell, and Leonora groped
her way fearfully toward him, believing him to be dead.

"Oh, the awful chill of this vault," she sobbed. "Look! Is the man
dead, already, Rocco?" Rocco went to look at the prisoner.

"No, he only sleeps. Come, that sunken well is near, and we have only
to uncover it to have the job done. It is a hard thing for a youth
like thee. Let us hurry." Rocco began searching for the disused well,
into which he meant the body of Florestan to be dumped after the
governor had killed him.

"Reach me that pickaxe," he directed Fidelio. "Are you afraid?"

"No, no, I feel chilled only."

"Well, make haste with the work, my boy, and it will warm you," Rocco
urged. Then while he worked and urged Fidelio to do the same, she
furtively watched the prisoner whose features she could not see in the
gloom of the cell.

"If we do not hurry, the governor will be here. Haste, haste!" Rocco
cried.

"Yes, yes," she answered, nearly fainting with grief and horror.

"Come, come, my boy. Help