A hellish pit! O God—'tis like my night-mair!
I was just in!—and those damn'd fingers of ice
Which clutch'd my hair up! Ha! what's that? it moved! [15]

[Ferdinand stands [motionless MS. III erased] staring at another recess in the cavern. In the mean time Osorio enters with a torch and hollas to him [halloes to Isidore Remorse].

Ferdinand. I swear, I saw a something moving there!
The moonshine came and went, like a flash of lightning.
I swear, I saw it move!

[Osorio goes into the recess, then returns, and with great scorn.

Osorio. A jutting clay-stone
Drips on the long lank weed that grows beneath;
[[564]] And the weed nods and drips.

Ferdinand (forcing a faint laugh). A joke to laugh at! 20
It was not that which frighten'd me, my lord!

Osorio. What frighten'd you?

Ferdinand. You see that little cranny?
But first permit me, [Lights his torch at Osorio'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.)[564:1]
You see that cranny there?

Osorio. Well, what of that?

Ferdinand. I walk'd up to it, meaning to sit there.
[[565]] When I had reach'd it within twenty paces—— [Ferdinand starts as if he felt the terror over again.
Merciful Heaven! Do go, my lord! and look. [30]