CLO. 
     A bullet brings you to. 
     I must forthwith to court to tell the King
     The issue of this lamentable day,
     That buries all his hope in night. 
     (To Fife.)
     Farewell.  Remember.

     Fife. 
     But a moment—­but a word! 
     When shall I see my mis—­mas—­

     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.