Act III, Scene 3

[Same as SCENE I.]

[PEDRO discovered guarded by two Alguazils.]

PED.
Shots and shouting! They must be at work. Perhaps you gentlemen will wait, while I go and see.

ALG.
Be quiet, or two bullets—

PED.
Oh, one would be enough, thank you. Well, if I mustn’t go, will you two gentlemen? and leave me to wait for you? I’m quite indifferent.

ALG.
We leave you not an instant or an inch.

PED.
Were ever guards half so polite! Sure, I must be a holiday to be so strictly kept.

ALG.
Hark! They are coming.

[Enter Judge and Alguazils with GIL, a cloak thrown over him.]

JUDGE.
Where is the other prisoner?

ALG.
Here, my lord.

JUDGE.
March on with us.

ALG. 2.
My lord, this man will faint with loss of blood and weariness.

JUDGE.
Halt then, and let him breathe awhile.

(They uncover GIL, and PEDRO sees him.)

PED.
I might have guessed it! Let me be in the bilboes, on the very scaffold, he must be with me: he will die on purpose to lie in the same grave with me, I think!

GIL.
Whose voice is that?

PED.
Nobody’s.

GIL.
Pedro? Courage, my poor boy. My day is over. Oh, vanity of mortal strength!

JUDGE.
But who are these?

[Enter DONNA LEONOR, with ISABEL, JUANA, and Servants.]

LEONOR.
I, Donna Leonor, who, falling in
With these sad ladies, do repent me much,
That, misdirected by a lying tongue,
I have pursued this gentleman—I doubt
To death—if not, I charge you from this moment
Leave him at liberty.

ISAB.
Or else—

[Enter suddenly MANUEL and DON ALONSO, and Followers.]

ALON.
Or else,
Look to it.

GIL.
Don Alonso! whom I thought
Far off upon the seas?

ALON.
And should have been,
But when my foot was on the very plank
That rock’d upon the foam along the beach,
I, who could never get you from my heart,
And knew that you had come to peril hither,
Could but return once more to him who saved
My life, though he had waved me from his side.
Enough; I am in time. I tell you, sir,
Give up this man at once. (To the Judge.)

JUDGE.
Not for you all!

ALON.
Then at him and his people!

(ALONZO, MANUEL, and their people rush on the Judge, Alguazils, etc., disarm them, and beat them out.)

ALON.
(embracing GIL) My friend is free.

GIL.
And what first use shall make
Of freedom?

PED.
Why, turn Friar; you can then
Be free and easy too, and leave me so.
Oh, sir, have I not had enough of terror,
Exile, and hunger, to deserve your pardon?
Plead for me, Don Alonso.

ALON.
Gil—

GIL.
Nay, nay,
What could you seem about to ask of me
But granted ere ’twas said? Go. I forgive you.
With which magnanimous forbearance now
Gil Perez, the Gallician, makes his bow.

[Exeunt.]