(Enter from the farther end of the stage crowds of terrible spectres, dimly seen through the vapour, which now spreads itself over the whole stage. All the Mystics and Mystic Sisters bow themselves very low, and the Arch Sister, standing alone in the middle, bows to all the different sides of the cave.)
Ethw. (to 1st Mystic.) To every side the mystic mistress bows,
What meaneth this? mine eye no form perceives:
Where is your mighty chief?
1st Mystic. Above, around you, and beneath.
Ethw. Has he no form to vision sensible?
1st Mystic. In the night's noon, in the winter's noon. In the lustre's noon:
Of times twice ten within the century's round
Is he before our leagued bands confess'd
In dread appearance:
But in what form or in what circumstance
May not be told; he dies who utters it.
(Ethw. shrinks at this and seems somewhat appalled. The Arch Sister, after tossing about her arms and writhing her body in a violent agitation, fixes her eyes, like one waked from a dream, stedfastly upon Ethw. then going suddenly up to him grasps him by the hand with energy.)
Arch Sist. Thou who would'st pierce the deep and awful shade
Of dark futurity, to know the state
Of after greatness waiting on thy will,
