now 'tis base:
Yet, to disarm thee of thy last defence,
I have thy oath for my security.
The only boon I begged was this fair combat:
Fight, or be perjured now; that's all thy choice.

_Seb._ Now can I thank thee as thou would'st be thanked. [_Drawing._
Never was vow of honour better paid,
If my true sword but hold, than this shall be.
The sprightly bridegroom, on his wedding night,
More gladly enters not the lists of love:
Why, 'tis enjoyment to be summoned thus.
Go, bear my message to Henriquez ghost;
And say, his master and his friend revenged him.

_Dor._ His ghost! then is my hated rival dead?

_Seb._ The question is beside our present purpose:
Thou seest me ready; we delay too long.

_Dor._ A minute is not much in either's life,
When there's but one betwixt us; throw it in,
And give it him of us who is to fail.

_Seb._ He's dead; make haste, and thou may'st yet o'ertake him.

_Dor._ When I was hasty, thou delayed'st me longer--
I pr'ythee let me hedge one moment more
Into thy promise: For thy life preserved,
Be kind; and tell me how that rival died,
Whose death, next thine, I wished.

_Seb._ If it would please thee, thou shouldst never know;
But thou, like jealousy, enquir'st a truth,
Which, found, will torture thee.--He died in fight;
Fought next my person; as in concert fought;
Kept pace for pace, and blow for every blow;
Save when he heaved his shield in my defence,
And on his naked side received my wound.
Then, when he could no more, he fell at once;
But rolled his falling body cross their way,
And made a bulwark of it for his prince.

_Dor._ I never can forgive him such a death!

_Seb._ I prophesied thy proud soul could not bear it.--
Now, judge thyself, who best deserved my love?
I knew you both; and (durst I say) as heaven
Foreknew, among the shining angel host,
Who would stand firm, who fall.

_Dor._ Had he been tempted so, so had he fallen;
And so had I been favoured, had I stood.

_Seb._ What had been, is unknown; what is, appears.
Confess, he justly was preferred to thee.

_Dor._ Had I been born with his indulgent stars,
My fortune had been his, and his been mine.--
O worse than hell! what glory have I lost,
And what has he acquired, by such a death!
I should have fallen by Sebastian's side,
My corps had been the bulwark of my king.
His glorious end was a patched work of fate,
Ill sorted with a soft effeminate life;
It suited better with my life than his,
So to have died: