Chamberlain
Yes, he will be one Thakbar, a poor man and a righteous.
ZABRA
But if he be not Thakbar but some greedy man who demands more gold that we would give to Thakbar?
Chamberlain
Why, then we must give him even what he demands, and God will punish his greed.
ZABRA
He must come past us here.
Chamberlain
Yes, he must come this way. He will summon the cavalry from the Saloia Samang.
ZABRA
It will be nearly dark before they can come.
Chamberlain
No, he is in great haste. He will pass before sunset. He will make them mount at once.
ZABRA
[Looking off R.]
I do not see any stir at the Saloia.
Chamberlain
[Looking too.]
No---No. I do not see. He will make a stir.
[As they look a man comes through the doorway wearing a coarse brown cloak which falls over his forehead. He exits furtively L.]
What man is that? He has gone down to the camels.
ZABRA
He has given a piece of money to one of the camel-drivers.
Chamberlain
See, he has mounted.
ZABRA
Can it have been the King!
[Voices off L. "Ho-Yo! Ho-Yay!"]
Chamberlain
It is only some camel-driver going into the desert. How glad his voice sounds.
ZABRA
The Siroc will swallow him.
Chamberlain
What--if it were the King!
ZABRA
Why, if it were the King we should starve for a year.
CURTAIN.
ACT 2.
The same scene
One year has elapsed.
[The King, wrapped in a camel-driver's cloak, sits by Eznarza, a gypsy of the desert.]
King
Now I have known the desert and dwelt in the tents of the Arabs.
Eznarza
There is no land like the desert and like the Arabs no people.
King
It is all over and done; I return to the walls of my fathers.
Eznarza
Time cannot put it away; I go back to the desert that nursed me.
King
Did you think in those days on the sands, or among the tents in the mornings, that my year would ever end, and I be brought away by strength of my word to the prisoning of a palace?
Eznarza
I knew that Time would do it, for my people have learned the way of him.
King
Is it then Time that has mocked our futile prayers? Is he greater than God that he has laughed at our praying?
Eznarza
We may not say that he is greater than God. Yet we prayed that our own year might not pass away. God could not save it.
King
Yes, yes. We prayed that prayer. All men would laugh at it.
Eznarza
The prayer was not laughable. Only he that is lord of the years is obdurate. If a man prayed for life to a furious, merciless Sultan well might the Sultan's slaves laugh. Yet it is not laughable to pray for life.
King
Yes, we are slaves of Time. To-morrow brings the princess who comes from Tharba. We must bow our heads.
Eznarza
My people say that Time lives in the desert. He lies there in the sun.
King
No, no, not in the desert. Nothing alters there.
Eznarza
My people say that the desert is his country. He smites not his own country, my people say. But he overwhelms all other lands of the world.
King
Yes, the desert is always the same, ev'n the littlest rocks of it.
Eznarza
They say that he loves the Sphinx and does not harm her. They say that he does not dare to harm the Sphinx. She has borne him many gods whom the infidels worship.
King
Their father is more terrible than all the false gods.
Eznarza
O, that he had but spared our little year.
King
He destroys all things utterly.
Eznarza
There is a little child of man that is mightier than he, and who saves the world from Time.
King
Who is this little child that is mightier than Time? Is it Love that is mightier?
Eznarza
No, not Love.
King
If he conquer even Love then none are mightier.
Eznarza
He scares Love away with weak white hairs and with wrinkles. Poor little love, poor Love, Time scares him away.
King
What is this child of man that can conquer Time and that is braver than Love?
Eznarza
Even memory.
King
Yes. I will call to him when the wind is from the desert and the locusts are beaten against my obdurate walls. I will call to him more when I cannot see the desert and cannot hear the wind of it.
Eznarza
He shall bring back our year to us that Time cannot destroy. Time cannot slaughter it if Memory says no. It is reprieved, though banished. We shall often see it though a little far off and all its hours and days shall dance to us and go by one by one and come back and dance again.
King
Why, it is true. They shall come back to us. I had thought that they that work miracles whether in Heaven or Earth were unable to do one thing. I thought that they could not bring back days again when once they had fallen into the hands of Time.
Eznarza
It is a trick that Memory can do. He comes up softly in the town or the desert, wherever a few men are, like the strange dark conjurors who sing to snakes, and he does his trick before them, and does it again and again.
King
We will often make him bring the old days back when you are gone to your people and I am miserably wedded to the princess coming from Tharba.
Eznarza
They will come with sand on their feet from the golden, beautiful desert, they will come with a long-gone sunset each one over his head. Their lips will laugh with the olden evening voices.
King
It is nearly noon. It is nearly noon. It is nearly noon.
Eznarza
Why, we part then.
King
O, come into the city and be Queen there. I will send its princess back again to Tharba. You shall be Queen in Thalanna.
Eznarza
I go now back to my people. You will wed the princess from Tharba on the morrow. You have said it. I have said it.
King
O, that I had not given my word to return.
Eznarza
A King's word is like a King's crown and a King's sceptre and a King's throne. It is in fact a foolish thing, like a city.
King
I cannot break my word. But you can be queen in Thalanna.
Eznarza
Thalanna will not have a gypsy for a queen.
King
I will make Thalanna have her for a queen.
Eznarza
You cannot make a gypsy live for a year in a city.
King
I knew of a gypsy that lived once in a city.
Eznarza
Not such a gypsy as I...come back to the tents of the Arabs.
King
I cannot. I gave my word.
Eznarza
Kings have broken their words.
King
Not such a King as I.
Eznarza
We have only that little child of man whose name is Memory.
King
Come. He shall bring back to us, before we part, one of those days that were banished.