The Octoroon

Act V begins in the slave quarters, where Zoe knocks on the door of Dido, a slave and the estate’s cook. Zoe asks her for a drink that she uses to calm fevers, claiming that one of the people back at the house is sick. She then reveals, however, that she actually wants the liquid for herself because it is poisonous, and she wants to commit suicide after hearing George say about her: “I’d rather see her dead than [M’Closky’s]!” (69). “I’m afraid to die; yet I am more afraid to live,” Zoe says, asking Dido to “protect me from that man—do let me die without pain” (70). She refuses, but Zoe steals the bottle from her anyway and runs off.

Scene 2 is set in the Bayou, where M’Closky is asleep. He talks in his sleep, asking: “I’m not guilty; would ye murder me?” (70), but then wakes up and speaks about how he still feels as though he is being followed. He hopes that “in a little time this darned business will blow over, and I can show again” (71), and gets in a canoe and paddles off—with Wahnotee following. Scudder and Pete, meanwhile, are returning from the steamship with the news of M’Closky’s guilt and the found Liverpool letter.