Page:The Dial (Volume 73).djvu/594
DECIMA: Are all here my faithful servants?
BISHOP: All, Your Majesty.
DECIMA: All?
PRIME MINISTER (bowing low): All, Your Majesty.
DECIMA (singing):
She pulled the thread, and bit the thread
And made the golden gown.
Hand me that plate of lobster and that bottle of wine. While I am eating I will have a good look at my new man.
(The plate and bottle of wine are handed to her. The bray of a donkey is heard and the Old Beggar is dragged in amid the hoots of the mob.)
BISHOP: At last we have found this impostor out. He has been accepted by the whole nation as if he were the Voice of God. As if the crown could not be settled firmly on any head without his help. It’s plain that he has been in league with the conspirators, and believed that Your Majesty had been killed. He is keeping it up still. Look at his glassy eye. But his madman airs won't help him now.
PRIME MINISTER (shaking Septimus): Do you understand that there has been a miracle, that God or the Fiend has spoken, and that the Crown is on her head for good, that fate has brayed on that man's lips. (Aloud) We will hang him in the morning.
SEPTIMUS: She is my wife.
PRIME MINISTER: The Crown has changed and there is no help for it. Sleep of Adam, I must have that woman for wife. The Oracle has settled that. (Takes Septimus away to prison.)
SEPTIMUS: She is my wife, she is my bad, flighty wife.
PRIME MINISTER: Seize this man. He has been whispering slanders against Her Majesty. Cast him beyond the borders of the Kingdom and find the company of players he belongs to. They also are banished and must not return on pain of death. Now, my Lord Bishop, I am ready.
DECIMA (singing):
She wept because she had dreamt that I
Was born to wear a crown.
(She flings the lobster's claw at the Prime Minister.) Come—crack that claw.
CURTAIN