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SCENE I
A cavern, dark, except where a gleam of moonlight is seen on one side
at the further end of it; supposed to be cast on it from a crevice in a
part of the cavern out of sight. ISIDORE alone, an extinguished torch in
his hand.
Isidore. Faith ‘twas a moving letter — very moving!
‘His life in danger, no place safe but this!
‘Twas his turn now to talk of gratitude.’
And yet — but no! there can’t be such a villain.
It can not be!
Thanks to that little crevice, 5
Which lets the moonlight in! I’ll go and sit by it.
To peep at a tree, or see a he-goat’s beard,
Or hear a cow or two breathe loud in their sleep —
Any thing but this crash of water drops!
These dull abortive sounds that fret the silence 10
With puny thwartings and mock opposition!
So beats the death-watch to a sick man’s ear.
[He goes out of sight, opposite to the patch of
moonlight: and returns.
A hellish pit! The very same I dreamt of!
I was just in — and those damn’d fingers of ice
Which clutch’d my hair up! Ha! — what’s that — it mov’d. 15
[ISIDORE stands staring at another recess in the
cavern. In the mean time ORDONIO enters with
a torch, and halloes to ISIDORE.
Isidore. I swear that I saw something moving there!
The moonshine came and went like a flash of lightning ——
I swear, I saw it move.
Ordonio (goes into the recess, then returns).
A jutting clay stone
Drops on the long lank weed, that grows beneath:
And the weed nods and drips.
Isidore. A jest to laugh at! 20
It was not that which scar’d me, good my lord.
Ordonio. What scar’d you, then?
Isidore. You see that little rift?
But first permit me!
[Lights his torch at ORDONIO’S, and while lighting it.
(A lighted torch in the hand
Is no unpleasant object here — one’s breath
Floats round the flame, and makes as many colours 25
As the thin clouds that travel near the moon.)
You see that crevice there?
My torch extinguished by these water-drops,
And marking that the moonlight came from thence,
I stept in to it, meaning to sit there; 30
But scarcely had I measured twenty paces —
My body bending forward, yea, o’erbalanced
Almost beyond recoil, on the dim brink
Of a huge chasm I stept. The shadowy moonshine
Filling the void so counterfeited substance, 35
That my foot hung aslant adown the edge.
Was it my own fear?
Fear too hath its instincts!
(And yet such dens as these are wildly told of,
And there are beings that live, yet not for the eye)
An arm of frost above and from behind me 40
Pluck’d up and snatched me backward. Merciful Heaven!
You smile! alas, even smiles look ghastly here!
My lord, I pray you, go yourself and view it.
Ordonio. It must have shot some pleasant feelings through you.
Isidore. If every atom of a dead man’s flesh 45
Should creep, each one with a particular life,
Yet all as cold as ever—’twas just so!
Or had it drizzled needle-points of frost
Upon a feverish head made suddenly bald —
Ordonio. Why, Isidore,
I blush for thy cowardice. It might have startled, 50
I grant you, even a brave man for a moment —
But such a panic —
Isidore. When a boy, my lord!
I could have sate whole hours beside that chasm,
Push’d in huge stones and heard them strike and rattle
Against its horrid sides: then hung my head 55
Low down, and listened till the heavy fragments
Sank with faint crash in that still groaning well,
Which never thirsty pilgrim blest, which never
A living thing came near — unless, perchance,
Some blind-worm battens on the ropy mould 60
Close at its edge.
Ordonio. Art thou more coward now?
Isidore. Call him, that fears his fellow-man, a coward!
I fear not man — but this inhuman cavern,
It were too bad a prison-house for goblins.
Beside, (you’ll smile, my lord) but true it is,
