Osorio. It must have shot some pleasant feelings thro' you?

Ferdinand. If every atom of a dead man's flesh
Should move, each one with a particular life,
Yet all as cold as ever—'twas just so!
Or if it drizzled needle-points of frost [35]
Upon a feverish head made suddenly bald—

Osorio (interrupting him). Why, Ferdinand! I blush for thy cowardice.
It would have startled any man, I grant thee.
But such a panic.

Ferdinand. When a boy, my lord!
I could have sat whole hours beside that chasm, [40]
Push'd in huge stones and heard them thump and rattle
Against its horrid sides; and hung my head
Low down, and listen'd till the heavy fragments
Sunk, with faint crash, in that still groaning well,
Which never thirsty pilgrim blest, which never [45]
A living thing came near; unless, perchance,
Some blind-worm battens on the ropy mould,
Close at its edge.

Osorio. Art thou more coward now?

Ferdinand. Call him that fears his fellow-men a coward.
I fear not man. But this inhuman cavern [50]
It were too bad a prison-house for goblins.
Besides (you'll laugh, my lord!) but true it is,
My last night's sleep was very sorely haunted[565:1]
[[566]] By what had pass'd between us in the morning.
I saw you in a thousand hideous ways, [55]
And doz'd and started, doz'd again and started.
I do entreat your lordship to believe me,
In my last dream——

Osorio. Well?

Ferdinand. I was in the act
Of falling down that chasm, when Alhadra
Waked me. She heard my heart beat!

Osorio. Strange enough! [60]
Had you been here before?

Ferdinand. Never, my lord!
But my eyes do not see it now more clearly
Than in my dream I saw that very chasm.