[EXIT.]

SCENE 4.2: 
BEFORE THE CASTLE OF PETRELLA. 
ENTER BEATRICE AND LUCRETIA ABOVE ON THE RAMPARTS.

BEATRICE: 
They come not yet.

LUCRETIA: 
’Tis scarce midnight.

BEATRICE: 
How slow
Behind the course of thought, even sick with speed,
Lags leaden-footed time!

LUCRETIA: 
The minutes pass... 
If he should wake before the deed is done?

BEATRICE: 
O, mother!  He must never wake again. 5
What thou hast said persuades me that our act
Will but dislodge a spirit of deep hell
Out of a human form.

LUCRETIA: 
’Tis true he spoke
Of death and judgement with strange confidence
For one so wicked; as a man believing 10
In God, yet recking not of good or ill. 
And yet to die without confession!...

BEATRICE: 
Oh! 
Believe that Heaven is merciful and just,
And will not add our dread necessity
To the amount of his offences.

[ENTER OLIMPIO AND MARZIO BELOW.]

LUCRETIA: 
See, 15
They come.

BEATRICE: 
All mortal things must hasten thus
To their dark end.  Let us go down.

[EXEUNT LUCRETIA AND BEATRICE FROM ABOVE.]

OLIMPIO: 
How feel you to this work?

MARZIO: 
As one who thinks
A thousand crowns excellent market price
For an old murderer’s life.  Your cheeks are pale. 20

OLIMPIO: 
It is the white reflection of your own,
Which you call pale.

MARZIO: 
Is that their natural hue?

OLIMPIO: 
Or ’tis my hate and the deferred desire
To wreak it, which extinguishes their blood.

MARZIO: 
You are inclined then to this business?

OLIMPIO: 
Ay, 25
If one should bribe me with a thousand crowns
To kill a serpent which had stung my child,
I could not be more willing.
[ENTER BEATRICE AND LUCRETIA BELOW.]
Noble ladies!

BEATRICE: 
Are ye resolved?

OLIMPIO: 
Is he asleep?

MARZIO: 
Is all
Quiet?

LUCRETIA: 
I mixed an opiate with his drink:  30
He sleeps so soundly...

BEATRICE: 
That his death will be
But as a change of sin-chastising dreams,
A dark continuance of the Hell within him,
Which God extinguish!  But ye are resolved? 
Ye know it is a high and holy deed? 35

OLIMPIO: 
We are resolved.

MARZIO: 
As to the how this act
Be warranted, it rests with you.

BEATRICE: 
Well, follow!

OLIMPIO: 
Hush!  Hark!  What noise is that?