--The stage
is empty, at rise of the curtain; but the sound of chanting from burghers
just gone by fades slowly, on the road to Rudersheim.
From the hillside at the rear comes the PIPER, wrapped in a long green
cloak, his pipe in his hand. He looks after the procession, and back
to Hamelin.--Enter, springing from the bushes to the right, MICHAEL,
who seizes him.
Their speech goes breathlessly.
MICHAEL
QUICK!--tell me--
PIPER
Patience.
MICHAEL
Patience?--Death and hell!
Oh, save her--save her! Give the children back.
PIPER
Never. Have you betrayed us?
MICHAEL
I!--betrayed?
PIPER
So, so, lad.
MICHAEL
But to save her--
PIPER
There's a way,--
Trust me! I save her, or we swing together
Merrily, in a row.--How did you see her?
MICHAEL
By stealth: two days ago, at evening,
Hard by the vine-hid wall of her own garden,
I made a warbling like a nightingale;
And she came out to hear.
PIPER
A serenade!
Under the halter!
MICHAEL
Hush.--A death-black night,
Until she came.--Oh, how to tell thee, lad!
She came,--she came, not for the nightingale,
But even dreaming that it would be I!
PIPER
She knew you?--We are trapped, then.
MICHAEL
No, not so!
She smiled on me.--Dost thou remember how
She smiled on me that day? Alas, poor maid,
She took me for some noble in disguise!
And all these days,--she told me,--she had dreamed
That I would come to save her!
PIPER
Said she this?
MICHAEL
All this--all this, and more! .
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