THE DYNASTS ACT n
SEMICHORUS I
And transports in the docks gulp down their freight Of buckled fighting-flesh, and, gale-bound, watch and wait.
SEMICHORUS II
Till gracious zephyrs shoulder on their sails To where the brine of Biscay moans its tragic tales.
CHORUS
Bear we, too, south, as we were swallow-vanned, And mark the game now played there by the Master-hand!
The reception-chamber is shut over by the night without, and the point of view rapidly recedes south, London and its streets and lights diminishing till they are lost in the distance, and its noises being succeeded by the babble of the Channel and Biscay waves.
SCENE IV
MADRID AND ITS ENVIRONS
The view is from the housetops of the city on a dusty evening in this July, following a day of suffocating heat. The sunburnt roofs, warm ochreous walls, and blue shadows of the capital, wear their usual aspect except for a few feeble attempts at decoration.
DUMB SHOW
Gazers gather in the central streets, and particularly in the Puerta del SoL They show curiosity, but no enthusiasm. Patrols of French soldiery move up and down in front of the people^ and seem to awe them into quietude.
There is a discharge of artillery in the outskirts, and the church bells begin ringing; but the peals dwindle away to a melancholy jangle, and then to silence. Simultaneously, on the northern horizon of the arid, unenclosed, and treeless plain swept by the eye around
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