Scene-17 A Peak in a Mountainous Country
Overhanging a Rocky Pass-
Hugo and Orion on black horses. Midnight.
Orion invites Hugo to explore the 
unrolling of the "Scrolls of Fate"
Hugo sights a phantom.The scarlet woman of Babylon.



HUGO

These steeds are sprung from no common race,
Their vigour seems to annihilate space;
What hast thou brought me here to see?

Orion
No boisterous scene of unhallow'd glee,
No sabbat of witches coarse and rude,
But a mystic and musical interlude;
You have long'd to explore the scrolls of Fate,
Dismount, as I do, and listen and wait.
 They dismount.
ORION (chanting)
Spirits of earth, and air, and sea,
Spirits unclean, and spirits untrue,
By the symbols three, that shall nameless be,
One of your masters calls on you.
SPIRITS (chanting in the distance):
From the bowels of earth, where gleams the gold;
From the air, where the powers of darkness hold
Their court; from the white sea-foam,
Whence the white rose-tinted goddess sprung,
Whom poets of every age have sung,
Ever we come! we come!
HUGO
How close to our ears the thunder peals!
How the earth beneath us shudders and reels!
A VOICE (Chanting)
Woe to the earth! Where men give death!
And women give birth!
To the sons of Adam, by Cain or Seth!
Plenty and dearth!
To the daughters of Eve, who toil and spin,
Barren of worth!
Let them sigh, and sicken, and suffer sin!
Woe to the earth!
                Adam Lindsay Gordon