within its arms expects me?
Who, in one brief moment's compass,
Could upon these faded features,
Pallid, motionless, and shrunken,
Have extinguished the bright beauties
Of the blush rose and the purple?

THE SKELETON. Cyprian, such are all the glories
Of the world that you so covet.

[The Skeleton disappears.
CLARIN rushes in frightened, and embraces CYPRIAN.

* * * * *

SCENE XIV.

CLARIN and CYPRIAN.

CLARIN. Fear, for any one who wants it,
Wholesale or retail I'll furnish.

CYPRIAN. Stay! funereal shadow, stay!
Now for other ends I urge thee.

CLARIN. I am a funereal body:--
Don't you see it by my bulk here?

CYPRIAN. Ah! who are you?

CLARIN. Who I am, sir,
Or am not, myself doth puzzle.

CYPRIAN. Did you in the air's void spaces,
Or earth's caverns yawning under,
See an icy corse here vanish,
See to dust and ashes turning
All the freshness and the beauty
That it promised in its coming?

CLARIN. Do you take me, sir, for one
Of those pitiful poor lurkers
Men call spies?

CYPRIAN. What could it be?

CLARIN. And not be, in such a hurry.

CYPRIAN. Let us seek it.

CLARIN. Let's not seek it.

CYPRIAN. I must sift this matter further.

CLARIN. I would rather not.

* * * * *

SCENE XV.

The Demon, CYPRIAN, and CLARIN.

DEMON [aside]. Just heavens,
If my nature, in conjunction,
Once possessed both grace and science,
When 'mongst angels I was numbered,
Grace alone is what I've lost,
Science no. Then why unjustly,
If 'tis so, deprive my science
Of its proper power and function?

CYPRIAN. Lucifer, wise master mine.

CLARIN. Pray don't call him: for he'll come here
In another corse, I warrant.

DEMON. Speak, what would you?

CYPRIAN. The annulling,
The redemption of those pledges,
At whose very thought I shudder.

CLARIN. As I don't redeem my pledges,
I'll slip off here through the bushes.
[Exit.

* * * * *

SCENE XVI.

CYPRIAN and The Demon.

CYPRIAN. Scarcely o'er earth's wounded bosom
Had I the true spell-word uttered,
When in the ensu