Well!

WALLENST.

What followed?

ILLO.

They refused obedience to them.

TERZKY.

Fire on them instantly! Give out the order.

WALLENST.

Gently! what cause did they a.s.sign?

ILLO.

No other, They said, had right to issue orders but Lieutenant-General _Piccolomini_.

WALLENSTEIN (_in a convulsion of agony_).

What? How is that?

ILLO.

He takes that office on him by commission, Under sign-manual of the Emperor.

TERZKY.

From the Emperor--hear'st thou, Duke?

ILLO.

At his incitement The Generals made that stealthy flight--

TERZKY.

Duke! hear'st thou?

ILLO.

Caraffa too, and Montecuculi, Are missing, with six other generals, All whom he had induced to follow him.

This plot he has long had in writing by him From the Emperor; but 'twas finally concluded, With all the detail of the operation, Some days ago with the Envoy Questenberg.

[WALLENSTEIN _sinks down into a chair and covers his face_.]

TERZKY.

O hadst thou but believed me!

SCENE IX

_To them enter the_ COUNTESS

COUNTESS.

This suspense, This horrid fear--I can no longer bear it.

For heaven's sake tell me what has taken place?

ILLO.

The regiments are all falling off from us.

TERZKY.

Octavio Piccolomini is a traitor.

COUNTESS.

O my foreboding! [_Rushes out of the room_.]

TERZKY.

Hadst thou but believed me!

Now seest thou how the stars have lied to thee.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WALLENSTEIN HEARS OF OCTAVIO'S TREASON As performed at the Munic.i.p.al Theatre, Hamburg, 1906.]

WALLENST.

The stars lie not; but we have here a work Wrought counter to the stars and destiny.

The science is still honest: this false heart Forces a lie on the truth-telling heaven.

On a divine law divination rests; Where nature deviates from that law, and stumbles Out of her limits, there all science errs.

True I did not suspect! Were it superst.i.tion Never by such suspicion t' have affronted The human form, O may that time ne'er come In which I shame me of the infirmity.

The wildest savage drinks not with the victim, Into whose breast he means to plunge the sword.

This, this, Octavio, was no hero's deed: 'Twas not thy prudence that did conquer mine; A bad heart triumph'd o'er an honest one.

No shield received the a.s.sa.s.sin stroke; thou plungest Thy weapon on an unprotected breast-- Against such weapons I am but a child.

SCENE X

_To these enter_ BUTLER