A dream? Oh no! None was to waste on me; warning was lost On my poor worth. The stone in crashing fall May have its shadow for the eye to mark, The sudden sword its flash, but on my head-- Kandaules, speak! I see--you wish a question! Then question and be done! KAN. I? Yes--why, yes! But more than all--your hand! RHOD. Withhold your touch! No water rids you of the ’filing spot. KAN. O Gyges!--Come, since thus your hand’s refused me-- (And without that your cheek tells tale enough). You’re hot with fever; but the goodliest leech Stands at the door. Why is it barred and bolted When such a morn as all the trooping hours Lade with their sweets, beggar-like knocks outside? Quick, fling it back, and on the act you’re healed! [KANDAULES _is about to open it_. RHOD. Halt! Ope more readily a charnel-vault! Not darklier-browed the stainless god o’ the sun Averts his face from shattered urns of death Than from the woman you have named your own. KAN. Unhappy one! RHOD. Speak! Was there in the chamber-- Speak at all costs----! KAN. A murderer? No, why, no! Come, ask yourself now, would I not have slain him? RHOD. Ay, if you saw him. KAN. And I must have seen him. The lamp had scarce been lit a moment since And brightly burned. RHOD. ’Twould seem so--yet I heard A many various stirrings. Not from you Nor yet from me they came. KAN. The night is rife With echoes and with startling curious noises And sleepless ears hear much. RHOD. There was a rustling. KAN. A worm i’ the wall! RHOD. A clink as of a sword Grazing on something. KAN. Maybe. Where’s the tone That Nature, in a fit of mimic fun, Has not embodied in some drollish beast To serve a voice’s turn? If you’ll but tear Your robe in two and mark the sound, I’ll tell What insect-buzz it is to the very life. RHOD. I heard a sighing, too. KAN. What, sighs from murderers? RHOD. No, no! And there’s the rub. KAN. ’Twas the cool night-wind. About your cheeks and mouth it would be playing And sighed at breaking only on the walls. I tell you there are trees that, like the stone Which drinks the light of day and waits for darkness To give it back, steep them in sounds and echoes, And thus they babble, sing, and moan at night. RHOD. You take it so? But wait--I’ve lost a dainty---- KAN. A precious stone perhaps? A diamond? This one? RHOD. You have it--You? KAN. Who else? See there! RHOD.