Page:Czecho-Slovak Student Life, Volume 18.djvu/296
med is His Prophet! (Enter Theodoric, who has a scourge attached to his girdle. He leaps upon Adonbec.)
THEO.: Ha! Thou infidel dog!
ADON: Hamako—fool—unloosen me! Or I will use my dagger!
THEO.: Thy dagger! Infidel dog! Hold it in thy grip, if thou canst! (He wrenches the dagger from Adonbec’s hand, and menaces him with it.) Thy dagger? I will plunge it into thy devil-worshipping heart: ’twere fitter there than in thy hand.
ADON.: Help, Nazarene! Or this raving prophet will slay me.
THEO.: Slay thee? Aye, and well thou deservest death for singing thy blasphemous hymns to the devil and his prophet.
KEN.: Hold, man, whoever thou art! Be thou good or evil, know that I am a sworn companion to this Saracen; therefore I bid thee loosen him, or I will do battle with thee in his behalf.
THEO.: (Rising.) Ho, and a proper quarrel it were for a crusader to fight for an unbeliever against one of his own faith. Art thou come to fight for the Crescent, or the Cross? Forsooth, a proper soldier of the Cross art thou to listen unheeding to the praises of satan.—I knew thee, Adonbec, and the purpose of thy journey. Thou mayest thank thy star and Richard’s illness that thy heart is not now the grave of the dagger.
KEN.: And who mayest thou be, old man?
ADON.: Why, thou shouldst know him. ’Tis Hamako, half mad-man, half prophet ’Tis not the first time I have borne with this mad usage, for our holy Prophet bids us reverence those in whom the light of natural reason has been darkened in order that the light of prophecy might shine the brighter.
THEO.: (Going about, and waving the scourge round his head) I am Theodoric of Engaddi! I am the walker of the desert! I am the friend of the Cross, and the friend of the friends of the Cross! I am the scourge of infidels, heretics, and devil-worshippers! Avoid ye, avoid ye! Down with Mahommed, Termagaunt, and all the traitors of the Cross!—Hasten, Sir Kenneth of Scotland, to Richard’s camp. Hasten, thy heathen friend—for Richard needs ye both. Treason stalks in the shadow of the banner of the Cross! Murder creeps in the banner of St. George!—Beware ye, beware ye! I am Theodoric of Engaddi! I am the walker of the desert! Avoid ye, avoid ye! (Exeunt, in opposite directions.)
(End of First Act. The Second Act will be published in the April issue of the S. L.)
RUDEL TO THE LADY OF TRIPOLI
For the S. L. by Chas. J. Heitzman.
And weep because the star he sought
His young arms to the sky.
Was just a bit too high.
“What grasping fools we are!”
But then, you see, I did not know
I too should one day want a star.
LOVE’S PAUSE
For the S. L., by George Gallik.
She held so gently stole
Upon me to consume
All restlessness of soul.
My lips; my eyelids closed—
And in that silence, hushed,
My spirit dreamed, reposed.
So like a tendril of
A vine, reached forth and pressed—
And all was joy and love.