CLO. Be content: All in good time; and then, and not before, Never to miss your master any more. (Exit.) FIFE. Such talk of dreaming--dreaming--I begin To doubt if I be dreaming I am Fife, Who with a lad who call'd herself a boy Because--I doubt there's some confusion here-- He wore no petticoat, came on a time Riding from Muscovy on half a horse, Who must have dreamt she was a horse entire, To cant me off upon my hinder face Under this tower, wall-eyed and musket-tongued, With sentinels a-pacing up and down, Crying All's well when all is far from well, All the day long, and all the night, until I dream--if what is dreaming be not waking-- Of bells a-tolling and processions rolling With candles, crosses, banners, San-benitos, Of which I wear the flamy-finingest, Through streets and places throng'd with fiery faces To some back platform-- Oh, I shall take a fire into my hand With thinking of my own dear Muscovy-- Only just over that Sierra there, By which we tumbled headlong into--No-land. Now, if without a bullet after me, I could but get a peep of my old home Perhaps of my own mule to take me there-- All's still--perhaps the gentlemen within Are dreaming it is night behind their masks-- God send 'em a good nightmare!--Now then--Hark! Voices--and up the rocks--and armed men Climbing like cats--Puss in the corner then. (He hides.) (Enter Soldiers cautiously up the rocks.) CAPTAIN. This is the frontier pass, at any rate, Where Poland ends and Muscovy begins. SOLDIER. We must be close upon the tower, I know, That half way up the mountain lies ensconced. CAPT. How know you that? SOL. He told me so--the Page Who put us on the scent. SOL. 2. And, as I think, Will soon be here to run it down with us. CAPT. Meantime, our horses on these ugly rocks Useless, and worse than useless with their clatter-- Leave them behind, with one or two in charge, And softly, softly, softly. SOLDIERS. --There it is! --There what? --The tower--the fortress-- --That the tower!-- --That mouse-trap! We could pitch it down the rocks With our own hands. --The rocks it hangs among Dwarf its proportions and conceal its strength; Larger and stronger than you think. --No matter; No place for Poland's Prince to be shut up in. At it at once! CAPT. No--no--I tell you wait-- Till those within give signal. For as yet We know not who side with us, and the fort Is strong in man and musket. SOL. Shame to wait For odds with such a cause at stake.