CYRANO DE BERGERAC
259
Carbon.
We are breaking! I am wounded—wounded twice!
Cyrano
[shouting to the Gascons].
Gascons! Ho, Gascons! Never turn your backs!
[To Carbon, whom he is supporting.]
Have no fear! I have two deaths to avenge:
My friend who's slain;—and my dead happiness!
[They come down—Cyrano brandishing the lance to which is attached Roxane's handkerchief.]
Float there! laced kerchief broidered with her name!
[He sticks it in the ground and shouts to the Cadets].
Fall on them, Gascons! Crush them!
[To the Fifer.]
Fall on them, Gascons! Crush them! Fifer, play!
[The fife plays. The wounded try to rise. Some Cadets, falling one over the other down the slope, group themselves round Cyrano and the little flag. The carriage is crowded with men inside and outside, and, bristling with arquebuses, is turned into a fortress.]
A Cadet
[appearing on the crest, beaten backwards, but still fighting, cries].
They're climbing the redoubt!
[and falls dead.]
