Mortadello

10 MORTADELLO MORTADELLO. Good-night, then, sweetheart, and God guard you. Oars there. MAGDALENA. Go, And God be with you, to strike hard ! MORTADELLO. Give way, men, row ! God pleasure you with sainted sleep, and dreams of me And the brave deed I purpose. MAGDALENA. Keep my love of thee In this, its token. [She takes a jewelled stiletto from her hair, and throws it into the gondola. MORTADELLO. Ere God’s globe from the sea upstart Its splinter shall be thrust through robe and rib to heart [His gondola glides off. MAGDALENA. enters further into the house, and the lackeys with their torches follow and close the door. ORLANDO cautiously rises. ORLANDO. Lean from the blind embrasure your bosom’s nenuphars. To night’s empurpled azure sown thick with squandered stars ! [The window opens, and MAGDALENA appears. The heavens open ! MAGDALENA. Thou ! Orlando, thou at last ! The skies are stainless now—all day were overcast. ORLANDO. Fair Magdalena ! Twinned the moons are ? MAGDALENA. And my face ? ORLANDO. How should a soul that sinned behold the utmost grace ? MAGDALENA. Fierce as this windless night my daylong hunger burns.