Horatio and Marcellus now came hurrying up, much alarmed for the safety of their young lord. They found him in a strange mood. The news he had heard from the Ghost had been such a shock to Hamlet that for the moment he seemed quite unstrung, and, not having yet made up his mind how to act, he did not feel inclined to confide to his companions what he had just been told. He therefore put off their questionings with flippant speeches, and dismissed them in a somewhat summary fashion.
“How is it, my noble lord?” cried Marcellus.
“What news, my lord?” asked Horatio.
“Oh, wonderful!” said Hamlet.
“Good my lord, tell it,” said Horatio.
“No; you will reveal it.”
“Not I, my lord, by heaven!” said Horatio, and Marcellus added: “Nor I, my lord.”
“How say you then? Would heart of man once think it——But you’ll be secret?”
“Ay, by heaven, my lord!” cried Horatio and Marcellus together.
Hamlet lowered his voice to a tone of mysterious importance: