_Prospero._ My brave spirit! Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil Would not infect his reason?
_Ariel._ Not a soul But felt a fever of the mad, and played Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel, Then all afire with me: the King's son Ferdinand----'"
"The prince, sweetheart!--the prince that is to be brought ashore."
'The King's son Ferdinand, With hair up-staring--then like reeds, not hair-- Was the first man that leaped: cried, "Hell is empty, And all the devils are here."
_Prospero._ Why, that's my spirit! But was not this nigh shore?
_Ariel._ Not a hair perished, On their sustaining garments not a blemish, But fresher than before; and, as thou badst me, The King's son have I landed by himself; Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting, His arms in this sad knot.'"
"And hath he not done well, that clever imp!" Judith cried. "Nay, but my father shall reward him--that he shall--'twas bravely done and well. And now to bring him to the maiden that hath never seen a sweetheart--that comes next, good Prue? I marvel now what she will say?"
"'Tis not yet, Judith," her friend said, and she continued the reading, while Judith sat and regarded the dusky shadows beyond the flame of the candle as if wonder-land were shining there. Then they arrived at Ariel's song, "Come unto these yellow sands," and all the hushed air around seemed filled with music; but it was distant, somehow, so that it did not interfere with Prudence's gentle voice.
'The fringed curtains of thine eye advance, And say what thou seest yond.
_Miranda._ What is't? a spirit? Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir, It carries a brave form. But 'tis a spirit.
_Prospero._ No, wench; it eats and sleeps, and hath such senses As we have, such. This gallant which thou seest Was in the wreck; and but he's something stained With grief, that's beauty's canker, thou might'st call him A goodly person. He hath lost his fellows, And strays about to find them.
_Miranda._ I might call him A thing divine, for nothing natural I ever saw so noble.'"
"And what says he? What thinks he of her?" Judith said, eagerly.
"Nay, first the father says--to himself, as it were