Page:Miscellaneous Plays 1.pdf/437

VALERIA (after pacing backward and forward with an unequal, restless, agitated step).

Oh, will this state of tossing agony

No termination have! Send out, I pray thee,
Another messenger.

LUCIA.

Indeed I have in little space of time

Sent many forth, but none return again.

VALERIA.

In little space! Oh it hath been a term

Of horrible length! such as rack'd fiends do reckon
Upon their tolling beds of surgy flames,
Told by the lashes of each burning tide
That o'er them breaks.—Hark! the quick step of one
With tidings fraught! Dost thou not hear it?

LUCIA.

No;

I hear it not.

VALERIA.

Still is it the false coinage of my fears?

Ah! hearing, sight, and every sense is now
False and deceitful grown.—I'll sit me down,
And think no more but let the black hour pass

In still and fixed stupor o'er my head. (Sits down upon a low seat, and supports her bended head upon both her hands.)