To make thee lose this moment of thy prayer.
Thy sand creeps low; despair, despair, despair!

_Mal._ Where am I now? upon the brink of life,
The gulph before me, devils to push me on,
And heaven behind me closing all its doors.
A thousand years for every hour I've past,
O could I 'scape so cheap! but ever, ever!
Still to begin an endless round of woes,
To be renewed for pains, and last for hell!
Yet can pains last, when bodies cannot last?
Can earthy substance endless flames endure?
Or, when one body wears and flits away,
Do souls thrust forth another crust of clay,
To fence and guard their tender forms from fire?
I feel my heart-strings rend!--I'm here,--I'm gone!
Thus men, too careless of their future state,
Dispute, know nothing, and believe too late.
[_A flash of lightning, they sink together._

SCENE III.--_Enter Duke of_ GUISE; _Cardinal, and_ AUMALE.

_Card._ A dreadful message from a dying man,
A prophesy indeed!
For souls, just quitting earth, peep into heaven,
Make swift acquaintance with their kindred forms,
And partners of immortal secrets grow.

_Aum._ 'Tis good to lean on the securer side:
When life depends, the mighty stake is such,
Fools fear too little, and they dare too much.

_Enter Arch-Bishop._

_Gui._ You have prevailed, I will not go to council.
I have provoked my sovereign past a pardon,
It but remains to doubt if he dare kill me:
Then if he dares but to be just, I die.
'Tis too much odds against me; I'll depart,
And finish greatness at some safer time.

_Arch._ By heaven, 'tis Harry's plot to fright you hence,
That, coward-like, you might forsake your friends.

_Gui._ The devil foretold it dying Malicorn.

_Arch._ Yes, some court-devil, no doubt:
If you depart, consider, good my lord,
You are the master-spring that moves our fabric,
Which once removed, our motion is no more.
Without your presence, which buoys up our hearts,
The League will sink beneath a royal name;
The inevitable yoke prepared for kings
Will soon be shaken off; things done, repealed;
And things undone, past future means to do.

_Card._ I know not; I begin to taste his reasons.

_Arch._ Nay, were the danger certain of your stay,
An act so mean would lose you all your friends,
And leave you single to the tyrant's rage:
Then better 'tis to hazard life alone,
Than life, and friends, and reputation too.

_Gui._ Since more I am confirmed, I'll stand the shock.
Where'er he dar