KING ARGIMENES Dig a little nearer, Zarb. (They both edge closer.) I have found a very old sword in the earth. It is not a sword such as common soldiers wear. A king must have worn it, and an angry king. It must have done fearful things; there are little dints in it. Perhaps there was a battle here long ago where all were slain, and perhaps that king died last and buried his sword, but the great birds swallowed him.
ZARB You have been thinking too much of the King's dog, Argimenes, and that has made you hungry, and hunger has driven you mad.
KING ARGIMENES I have found such a sword. (A pause.)
ZARB Why-then you will wear a purple cloak again, and sit on a great throne, and ride a prancing horse, and we shall call you Majesty.
KING ARGIMENES I shall break a long fast first and drink much water, and sleep. But will the slaves follow me?
ZARB You will make them follow you if you have a sword. Yet is Illuriel a very potent god. They say that none have prevailed against King Darniak's dynasty so long as Illuriel stood. Once an enemy cast Illuriel into the river and overthrew the dynasty, but a fisherman found him again and set him up, and the enemy was driven out and the dynasty returned.
KING ARGIMENES If Illuriel could be cast down as my god was cast down perhaps King Darniak could be overcome as I was overcome in my sleep?
ZARB If Illuriel were cast down all the people would utter a cry and flee away. It would be a fearful portent.
KING ARGIMENES How many men are there in the armoury at the palace?
ZARB There are ten men in the palace armoury when all the slave-guards are out. (They dig awhile in silence.)
ZARB The officer of the slave-guard has gone away-they are playing with dice now. (Zarb throws down his spade and stretches his arms)-The man with the big beard has won again, he is very nimble with his thumbs-They are playing again, but it is getting dark, I cannot clearly see.
(King Argimenes furtively uncovers the sword, he picks it up and grips it in his hand.)
ZARB Majesty! (King Argimenes crouches and steals away towards the slave-guard.)
ZARB (to the other slaves) Argimenes has found a terrible sword and has gone to slay the slave-guard. It is not a common sword, it is some king's sword.
AN OLD SLAVE Argimenes will be dreadfully flogged. We shall hear him cry all night. His cries will frighten us, and we shall not sleep.
ZARB No! no! The guards flog poor slaves, but Argimenes had an angry look. The guards will be afraid when they see him look so angry and see his terrible sword. It was a huge sword, and he looked very angry. He will bring us the swords of the slave-guard. We must prostrate ourselves before him and kiss his feet or he will be angry with us too.
OLD SLAVE Will Argimenes give me a sword?
ZARB He will have swords for six of us if he slays the slave-guard. Yes, he will give you a sword.
SLAVE A sword! No, no, I must not; the King would kill me if he found that I had a sword.
SECOND SLAVE (slowly, as one who develops an idea) If the King found that I had a sword, why then it would be an evil day for the King. (They all look off left.)
ZARB I think that they are playing at dice again.
FIRST SLAVE I do not see Argimenes.
ZARB No, because he was crouching as he walked. The slave-guard is on the sky-line.
SECOND SLAVE What is that dark shadow behind the slave-guard?
ZARB It is too still to be Argimenes.
SECOND SLAVE Look! It moves.
ZARB The evening is too dark, I cannot see. (They continue to gaze into the gathering darkness. They raise themselves on their knees and crane their necks. Nobody speaks. Then from their lips and from others further off goes up a long deep Oh! It is like the sound that goes up from the grand stand when a horse falls at a fence, or in England like the first exclamation of the crowd at a great cricket match when a man is caught in the slips.)
THE FALL OF BABBULKUND
I said: 'I will arise now and see Babbulkund, City of Marvel. She is of one age with the earth; the stars are her sisters. Pharaohs of the old time coming conquering from Araby first saw her, a solitary mountain in the desert, and cut the mountain into towers and terraces. They destroyed one of the hills of God, but they made Babbulkund. She is carven, not built; her palaces are one with her terraces, there is neither join nor cleft. Hers is the beauty of the youth of the world. She deemeth herself to be the middle of Earth, and hath four gates facing outward to the Nations. There sits outside her eastern gate a colossal god of stone. His face flushes with the lights of dawn. When the morning sunlight warms his lips they part a little, and he giveth utterance to the words 'Oon Oom,' and the language is long since dead in which he speaks, and all his worshippers are gathered to their tombs, so that none knoweth what the words portend that he uttereth at dawn. Some say that he greets the sun as one god greets another in the language thereof, and others say that he proclaims the day, and others that he uttereth warning. And at every gate is a marvel not credible until beholden.'
And I gathered three friends and said to them: 'We are what we have seen and known. Let us journey now and behold Babbulkund, that our minds may be beautified with it and our spirits made holier.'
So we took ship and travelled over the lifting sea, and remembered not things done in the towns we knew, but laid away the thoughts of them like soiled linen and put them by, and dreamed of Babbulkund.
But when we came to the land of which Babbulkund is the abiding glory, we hired a caravan of camels and Arab guides, and passed southwards in the afternoon on the three days' journey through the desert that should bring us to the white walls of Babbulkund. And the heat of the sun shone upon us out of the bright grey sky, and the heat of the desert beat up at us from below.
About sunset we halted and tethered our horses, while the Arabs unloaded the provisions from the camels and prepared a fire out of the dry scrub, for at sunset the heat of the desert departs from it suddenly, like a bird. Then we saw a traveller approaching us on a camel coming from the south. When he was come near we said to him:
'Come and encamp among us, for in the desert all men are brothers, and we will give thee meat to eat and wine, or, if thou art bound by thy faith, we will give thee some other drink that is not accursed by the prophet.'
The traveller seated himself beside us on the sand, and crossed his legs and answered:
'Hearken, and I will tell you of Babbulkund, City of Marvel. Babbulkund stands just below the meeting of the rivers, where Oonrana, River of Myth, flows into the Waters of Fable, even the old stream Plegathanees. These, together, enter her northern gate rejoicing. Of old they flowed in the dark through the Hill that Nehemoth, the first of Pharaohs, carved into the City of Marvel. Sterile and desolate they float far through the desert, each in the appointed cleft, with life upon neither bank, but give birth in Babbulkund to the sacred purple garden whereof all nations sing. Thither all the bees come on a pilgrimage at evening by a secret way of the air. Once, from his twilit kingdom, which he rules equally with the sun, the moon saw and loved Babbulkund, clad with her purple garden; and the moon wooed Babbulkund, and she sent him weeping away, for she is more beautiful than all her sisters the stars. Her sisters come to her at night into her maiden chamber. Even the gods speak sometimes of Babbulkund, clad with her purple garden. Listen, for I perceive by your eyes that ye have not seen Babbulkund; there is a restlessness in them and an unappeased wonder. Listen. In the garden whereof I spoke there is a lake that hath no twin or fellow in the world; there is no companion for it among all the lakes. The shores of it are of glass, and the bottom of it. In it are great fish having golden and scarlet scales, and they swim to and fro. Here it is the wont of the eighty-second Nehemoth (who rules in the city to-day) to come, after the dusk has fallen, and sit by the lake alone, and at this hour eight hundred slaves go down by steps through caverns into vaults beneath the lake. Four hundred of them carrying purple lights march one behind the other, from east to west, and four hundred carrying green lights march one behind the other, from west to east. The two lines cross and re-cross each other in and out as the slaves go round and round, and the fearful fish flash up and down and to and fro.'