Emp. By all my hopes, thou hast described thyself:  Thou, thou alone, art fit to play that engine, Thou only couldst contrive.

Bend. Sure I could serve you: 
I think I could:—­but here’s the difficulty;
I am so entirely yours,
That I should scurvily dissemble hate;
The cheat would be too gross.

Emp. Art thou a statesman, And canst not be a hypocrite?  Impossible!  Do not distrust thy virtues.

Bend. If I must personate this seeming villain, Remember ’tis to serve you.

Emp. No more words: 
Love goads me to Almeyda, all affairs
Are troublesome but that; and yet that most. [Going.
Bid Dorax treat Sebastian like a king;
I had forgot him;—­but this love mars all,
And takes up my whole breast. [Exit EMPEROR.

Bend. [To the EMP.] Be sure I’ll tell him—­
With all the aggravating circumstances [Alone.
I can, to make him swell at that command. 
The tyrant first suspected me;
Then with a sudden gust he whirled about,
And trusted me too far:—­Madness of power! 
Now, by his own consent, I ruin him. 
For, should some feeble soul, for fear or gain. 
Bolt out to accuse me, even the king is cozened,
And thinks he’s in the secret. 
How sweet is treason, when the traitor’s safe!

  Sees the MUFTI and DORAX entering, and seeming to confer.

The Mufti, and with him my sullen Dorax. 
That first is mine already: 
’Twas easy work to gain a covetous mind,
Whom rage to lose his prisoners had prepared: 
Now caught himself,
He would seduce another.  I must help him: 
For churchmen, though they itch to govern all,
Are silly, woeful, aukward politicians: 
They make lame mischief, though they mean it well: 
Their interest is not finely drawn, and hid,
But seams are coarsely bungled up, and seen.

Muf. He’ll tell you more.

Dor. I have heard enough already, To make me loath thy morals.

Bend. [To DOR.] You seem warm; The good man’s zeal perhaps has gone too far.

Dor. Not very far; not farther than zeal goes; Of course a small day’s journey short of treason.

Muf. By all that’s holy, treason was not named:  I spared the emperor’s broken vows, to save The slaves from death, though it was cheating heaven; But I forgave him that.

Dor. And slighted o’er The wrongs himself sustained in property; When his bought slaves were seized by force, no loss Of his considered, and no cost repaid. [Scornfully.

Muf. Not wholly slighted o’er, not absolutely.—­ Some modest hints of private wrongs I urged.

Dor. Two-thirds of all he said:  there he began
To shew the fulness of his heart; there ended. 
Some short excursions of a broken vow
He made indeed, but flat insipid stuff;
But, when he made his loss the theme, he flourished,
Relieved his fainting rhetoric with new figures,
And thundered at oppressing tyranny.