[Isidore stands staring at another recess in the cavern. In the mean time Ordonio enters with a torch, and halloes to Isidore.

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

Ordonio (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.[859:1]

Isidore. A jest to laugh at! [20]
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 25
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; 30
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, 35
That my foot hung aslant adown the edge.
[[860]] Was it my own fear?
Fear too hath its instincts![860:1]
(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 40
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.

Ordonio. It must have shot some pleasant feelings through you.

Isidore. If every atom of a dead man's flesh [45]
Should creep, each one with a particular life,
Yet all as cold as ever—'twas just so!
Or had it drizzled needle-points of frost
Upon a feverish head made suddenly bald—

Ordonio. Why, Isidore,
I blush for thy cowardice. It might have startled, [50]
I grant you, even a brave man for a moment—
But such a panic—

Isidore. 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 55
Low down, and listened till the heavy fragments
Sank with faint crash in that still groaning well,
Which never thirsty pilgrim blest, which never
A living thing came near—unless, perchance,
Some blind-worm battens on the ropy mould [60]
Close at its edge.