Mary Stuart: A Tragedy

SCENE V.

      Enter MARGARET CURL, bearing a golden cup of wine;
      she places it hastily upon the table, and leans,
      pale and trembling, against a chair.

   MELVIL.
   How, madam! What has frightened you?

   KENNEDY.
                       Oh God!

   BURGOYN.
   Speak, madam!

   CURL.
           What, alas! have I beheld!

   MELVIL.
   Come to yourself, and say what you have seen!

   CURL.
   As I went down the staircase which conducts
   To the great hall below, a door stood open;
   I looked into the chamber, and I saw—
   Oh heaven!

   MELVIL.
         What saw you?

   CURL.
                 All the walls were hung
   With black; a spacious scaffold, too, o'erspread
   With sable cloth, was raised above the floor,
   And in the middle of the scaffold stood
   A dreadful sable block! upon it lay
   A naked, polished axe:—the hall was full
   Of cruel people, crowding round the scaffold
   Who, with a horrid thirst for human blood,
   Seemed waiting for the victim!

   THE WOMEN.
                   Gracious heaven,
   Protect our queen!

   MELVIL.
             Be calm; the queen approaches.