ACT IV.

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.

Isid. 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 cannot be !

Thanks to that little crevice,
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
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.

[Isidore stands staring at another recess in the cavern. In the mean time Ordonio enters with

a torch, and halloes to Isidore.

Isid. I swear that I saw something moving there! The moonshine came and went like a flash of lightI swear I saw it move.

[ningOrd. (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.

Isid. A jest to laugh at! It was not that which scar'd me, good my lord.

Ord. What scar'd you, then?

Isid.

But first permit me!

You see that little rift?

[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 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;

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,

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) And arm of frost above and from behind me 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.
Ord. It must have shot some pleasant feelings
through you.

Isid. If every atom of a dead man's flesh
Should creep, each one with a particular life,
Yet all as cold as ever-
r-'twas just so!

Or had it drizzled needle points of frost

Upon a feverish head made suddenly bald

Ord.

Why, Isidore,

I blush for thy cowardice. It might have startled, I grant you, even a brave man for a moment— But such a panic—

Isid.

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
Low down, and listened till the heavy fragments
Sank with faint crash in that still groaning well,
Which never thisty pilgrim blest, which never
A living thing came near--unless, perchance,

Some blind-worm battens on the ropy mould

Close at its edge.

Ord.

Art thou more coward now?

Isid. 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,)
My last night's sleep was very sorely haunted
By what had passed between us in the morning.
O sleep of horrors! Now run down and stared at
By forms so hideous that they mock remembrance-
Now seeing nothing and imagining nothing,

But only being afraid—stifled with fear!

While every goodly or familiar form

Had a strange power of breathing terror round me! I saw you in a thousand fearful shapes;

And I entreat your lordship to believe me,

In my last dream

Ord.

Isid.

Well?

I was in the act

Of falling down that chasm, when Alhadra

Wak'd me she heard my heart beat.

Ord.

Had you been here before?

Isid.

Strange enough!

Never, my lord!

But mine eyes do not see it now more clearly,
Than in my dream I saw-that very chasm.
Ord. (after a pause.) I know not why it should
be! yet it is-

Isid. What is, my lord?

Ord. Abhorrent from our nature,

To kill a man.

Isid.

Except in self defence.

Ord. Why that's my case; and yet the soul recoils

from it

'Tis so with me at least. But you, perhaps,

Have sterner feelings?

Isid.

How shall I serve you?

Something troubles you.

By the life you gave me,

By all that makes that life of value to me,
My wife, my babes, my honour, I swear to you,
Name it, and I will toil to do the thing,

If it be innocent! But this, my lord!
Is not a place where you could perpetrate,

No, nor propose a wicked thing. The darkness,
When ten strides off we know 'tis cheerful moon-

light,

Collects the guilt, and crowds it round the heart.
It must be innocent.

Ord.

Thyself be judge.

One of our family knew this place well.

Isid. Who? when? my lord?

Ord. What boots it, who or when?

Hang up thy torch—I'll tell his tale to thee.

[They hang up their torches on some ridge in

the cavern.

He was a man different from other men,

And he despised them, yet revered himself. Isid. (aside.) He! He despised! Thou'rt speaking of thyself!