[[18]]
In the stage-direction the last four words are omitted Remorse.
[[19]]
Drips] Drops Remorse.
Between [19] and 31.
Isidore. A jest to laugh at!
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
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 hugh 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)
An 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.
Remorse.
[[33]]