resty, fiend?
Nine years thou hast to serve.

_Mel._ Not full nine minutes.

_Mal._ Thou liest; look on thy bond, and view the date.

_Mel._ Then, wilt thou stand to that without appeal?

_Mal.._ I will, so help me heaven!

_Mel._ So take thee hell. [_Gives him the bond._
There, fool; behold who lies, the devil, or thou?

_Mal._ Ha! one-and-twenty years are shrunk to twelve!
Do my eyes dazzle?

_Mel._ No, they see too true:
They dazzled once, I cast a mist before them,
So what was figured twelve, to thy dull sight
Appeared full twenty-one.

_Mal._ There's equity in heaven for this, a cheat.

_Mel._ Fool, thou hast quitted thy appeal to heaven,
To stand to this.

_Mal._ Then I am lost for ever!

_Mel._ Thou art.

_Mal._ O why was I not warned before?

_Mel._ Yes, to repent; then thou hadst cheated me.

_Mal._ Add but a day, but half a day, an hour:
For sixty minutes, I'll forgive nine years.

_Mel._ No, not a moment's thought beyond my time.
Dispatch; 'tis much below me to attend
For one poor single fare.

_Mal._ So pitiless?
But yet I may command thee, and I will:
I love the Guise, even with my latest breath,
Beyond my soul, and my lost hopes of heaven:
I charge thee, by my short-lived power, disclose
What fate attends my master.

_Mel._ If he goes
To council when he next is called, he dies.

_Mal._ Who waits?

_Enter Servant._

Go, give my lord my last adieu;
Say, I shall never see his eyes again;
But if he goes, when next he's called, to council,
Bid him believe my latest breath, he dies.-- [_Exit Serv._
The sands run yet.--O do not shake the glass!--
[_Devil shakes the glass._
I shall be thine too soon!--Could I repent!--
Heaven's not confined to moments.--Mercy, mercy!

_Mel._ I see thy prayers dispersed into the winds,
And heaven has past them by.
I was an angel once of foremost rank,
Stood next the shining throne, and winked but half;
So almost gazed I glory in the face,
That I could bear it, and stared farther in;
'Twas but a moment's pride, and yet I fell,
For ever fell; but man, base earth-born man,
Sins past a sum, and might be pardoned more:
And yet 'tis just; for we were perfect light,
And saw our crimes; man, in his body's mire,
Half soul, half clod, sinks blindfold into sin,
Betrayed by frauds without, and lusts within.

_Mel._ Then I have hope.

_Mal._ Not so; I preached on purpose