s of Don Pedro, is cast into prison. There he is tended by
Selika, who loves her gentle captor passionately, and has need of all
her regal authority--for in the distant island she was a queen--to
prevent the jealous Nelusko from slaying him in his sleep. Inez now
comes to the prison to announce to Vasco that she has purchased his
liberty at the price of giving her hand to Don Pedro. In the next act
Don Pedro, who has stolen a march on Vasco, is on his way to the
African island, taking with him Inez and Selika. The steering of the
vessel is entrusted to Nelusko. Vasco da Gama, who has fitted out a
vessel at his own expense, overtakes Don Pedro in mid-ocean, and
generously warns his rival of the treachery of Nelusko, who is steering
the vessel upon the rocks of his native shore. Don Pedro's only reply
is to order Vasco to be tied to the mast and shot, but before the
sentence can be carried out, the vessel strikes upon the rocks, and the
aborigines swarm over the sides. Selika, once more a queen, saves the
lives of Vasco and Inez from the angry natives. In the next act the
nuptials of Selika and Vasco are on the point of being celebrated, with
great pomp, when the hero, who has throughout the opera wavered between
the two women who love him, finally makes up his mind in favour of
Inez. Selika thereupon magnanimously despatches them home in Vasco's
ship, and poisons herself with the fragrance of the deadly manchineel
tree."

Behind Selika appear Robert and Bertram, from "Robert le Diable," the
first work of the composer's French period, produced in 1831. Its
libretto, by Scribe, tells how "Robert, Duke of Normandy, the son of
the Duchess Bertha by a fiend who donned the shape of man to prosecute
his amour, arrives in Sicily to compete for the hand of the Princess
Isabella, which is to be awarded as the prize at a magnificent
tournament. Robert's dare-devil gallantry and extravagance soon earn
him the sobriquet of 'Le Diable,' and he puts the coping-stone to his
folly by gambling away all his possessions at a single sitting, even to
his horse and the armour on his back. Robert has an _ame damnee_ in
the shape of a knight named Bertram, to whose malign influence most of
his crimes and follies are due. Bertram is in reality his
demon-father, whose every effort is directed to making a thorough-paced
villain of his son, so that he may have the pleasure of enjoying his
society for all eternity. In strong contrast to