University of Virginia Library

Scene I

A cavern, dark, except where a gleam of moonlight is seen on one side at the further end of it; supposed to be cast on it from a crevice in a part of the cavern out of sight. Isidore alone, an extinguished torch in his hand.
Isidore.
Faith 'twas a moving letter—very moving!
‘His life in danger, no place safe but this!
'Twas his turn now to talk of gratitude.’
And yet—but no! there can't be such a villain.
It can not be!
Thanks to that little crevice,
Which lets the moonlight in! I'll go and sit by it.
To peep at a tree, or see a he-goat's beard,
Or hear a cow or two breathe loud in their sleep—
Any thing but this crash of water drops!
These dull abortive sounds that fret the silence
With puny thwartings and mock opposition!
So beats the death-watch to a sick man's ear.
[He goes out of sight, opposite to the patch of moonlight: and returns.
A hellish pit! The very same I dreamt of!
I was just in—and those damn'd fingers of ice
Which clutch'd my hair up! Ha!—what's that—it mov'd.

[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.

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 huge 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.

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

Isidore.
If every atom of a dead man's flesh
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,
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
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
Close at its edge.

Ordonio.
Art thou more coward now?

Isidore.
Call him, that fears his fellow-man, a coward!
I fear not man—but this inhuman cavern,
It were too bad a prison-house for goblins.
Beside, (you'll smile, my lord) but true it is,
My last night's sleep was very sorely haunted
By what had passed between us in the morning.
O sleep of horrors! Now run down and stared at
By forms so hideous that they mock remembrance—
Now seeing nothing and imagining nothing,
But only being afraid—stifled with fear!
While every goodly or familiar form
Had a strange power of breathing terror round me!
I saw you in a thousand fearful shapes;
And, I entreat your lordship to believe me,
In my last dream—

Ordonio.
Well?

Isidore.
I was in the act
Of falling down that chasm, when Alhadra
Wak'd me: she heard my heart beat.

Ordonio.
Strange enough!
Had you been here before?

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

Ordonio
(after a pause).
I know not why it should be! yet it is—

Isidore.
What is, my lord?

Ordonio.
Abhorrent from our nature
To kill a man.—

Isidore.
Except in self-defence.

Ordonio.
Why that's my case; and yet the soul recoils from it—
'Tis so with me at least. But you, perhaps,
Have sterner feelings?

Isidore.
Something troubles you.
How shall I serve you? By the life you gave me,
By all that makes that life of value to me,
My wife, my babes, my honour, I swear to you,
Name it, and I will toil to do the thing,
If it be innocent! But this, my lord!
Is not a place where you could perpetrate,
No, nor propose a wicked thing. The darkness,
When ten strides off we know 'tis cheerful moonlight,
Collects the guilt, and crowds it round the heart.
It must be innocent.

Ordonio.
Thyself be judge.
One of our family knew this place well.

Isidore.
Who? when? my lord?

Ordonio.
What boots it, who or when?
Hang up thy torch—I'll tell his tale to thee.
[They hang up their torches on some ridge in the cavern.
He was a man different from other men,
And he despised them, yet revered himself.

Isidore
(aside).
He? He despised? Thou'rt speaking of thyself!
I am on my guard, however: no surprise.
[Then to Ordonio.
What, he was mad?

Ordonio.
All men seemed mad to him!
Nature had made him for some other planet,
And pressed his soul into a human shape
By accident or malice. In this world
He found no fit companion.

Isidore.
Of himself he speaks.
[Aside.
Alas! poor wretch!
Mad men are mostly proud.

Ordonio.
He walked alone,
And phantom thoughts unsought-for troubled him.
Something within would still be shadowing out
All possibilities; and with these shadows
His mind held dalliance. Once, as so it happened,
A fancy crossed him wilder than the rest:
To this in moody murmur and low voice
He yielded utterance, as some talk in sleep:
The man who heard him.—
Why did'st thou look round?

Isidore.
I have a prattler three years old, my lord!
In truth he is my darling. As I went
From forth my door, he made a moan in sleep—
But I am talking idly—pray proceed!
And what did this man?

Ordonio.
With this human hand
He gave a substance and reality
To that wild fancy of a possible thing.—
Well it was done!
Why babblest thou of guilt?
The deed was done, and it passed fairly off.
And he whose tale I tell thee—dost thou listen?

Isidore.
I would, my lord, you were by my fire-side,
I'd listen to you with an eager eye,
Though you began this cloudy tale at midnight,
But I do listen—pray proceed, my lord.

Ordonio.
Where was I?

Isidore.
He of whom you tell the tale—

Ordonio.
Surveying all things with a quiet scorn,
Tamed himself down to living purposes,
The occupations and the semblances
Of ordinary men—and such he seemed!
But that same over ready agent—he—

Isidore.
Ah! what of him, my lord?

Ordonio.
He proved a traitor,
Betrayed the mystery to a brother-traitor,
And they between them hatch'd a damnéd plot
To hunt him down to infamy and death.
What did the Valdez? I am proud of the name
Since he dared do it.—
[Ordonio grasps his sword, and turns off from Isidore, then after a pause returns.
Our links burn dimly.

Isidore.
A dark tale darkly finished! Nay, my lord!
Tell what he did.

Ordonio.
That which his wisdom prompted—
He made the traitor meet him in this cavern,
And here he kill'd the traitor.

Isidore.
No! the fool!
He had not wit enough to be a traitor.
Poor thick-eyed beetle! not to have foreseen
That he who gulled thee with a whimpered lie
To murder his own brother, would not scruple
To murder thee, if e'er his guilt grew jealous,
And he could steal upon thee in the dark!

Ordonio.
Thou would'st not then have come, if—

Isidore.
Oh yes, my lord!
I would have met him arm'd, and scar'd the coward.

[Isidore throws off his robe; shews himself armed, and draws his sword.
Ordonio.
Now this is excellent and warms the blood!
My heart was drawing back, drawing me back
With weak and womanish scruples. Now my vengeance
Beckons me onwards with a warrior's mien,
And claims that life, my pity robb'd her of—
Now will I kill thee, thankless slave, and count it
Among my comfortable thoughts hereafter.

Isidore.
And all my little ones fatherless—
Die thou first.

[They fight, Ordonio disarms Isidore, and in disarming him throws his sword up that recess opposite to which they were standing. Isidore hurries into the recess with his torch, Ordonio follows him; a loud cry of ‘Traitor! Monster!’ is heard from the cavern, and in a moment Ordonio returns alone.
Ordonio.
I have hurl'd him down the chasm! treason for treason.
He dreamt of it: henceforward let him sleep,
A dreamless sleep, from which no wife can wake him.
His dream too is made out—Now for his friend.

[Exit Ordonio.