ACT II.
(A dark night. A dim moon casts a ruddy glow over a narrow gorge covered with small bushes and hemmed in by cliffs. The mountain mist, slightly stirred by the wind, fills all the hollows with a milky shroud. In the midst of the bushes, and on the bare hillocks, wherever one looks, lie in heaps the bodies of dead warriors killed in battle. Eagles and other birds of prey sit on the corpses in flocks, flying away in fright at every gust of wind. Two horses stand motionless with heads lowered over the bodies of their masters. All is quiet, silent, and ominous. There is heard in the distance the sound of the unsteady footsteps of the discouraged army of King Dodon. In the gorge, looking about and stopping, the warriors come down in a file, two abreast.)
Warriors.
The silent night is whispering fearful things.
All is waste; only a flock of birds
Guard the bodies of the fallen.
The pallid disc of the moon
Has risen, and is like a funeral taper.
A mournful and dreary wind
Steals through the darkness;